New MGA Targeting U.S. Homebuilders Formed in California

Two veterans in the London insurance marketplace have come together again to launch an underwriting agency with a focus on U.S.-based homebuilders.

Paul Jansen and Kevin Hastings have launched Cove Programs Insurance Services, an underwriting agency and approved Lloyd’s coverholder.

Cove Programs, headquartered in Los Angeles, will offer program design, underwriting screening, risk control and claims assistance to builders throughout the country. Cove Programs is also fully licensed in California as a surplus lines broker.

Cove will offer primary and excess liability and property solutions for mid-to-large sized national and regional U.S. homebuilders, but Hastings says plans are in the works to offer programs in other market sectors down the road.

Hastings told Insurance Journal that despite challenges in the construction sector, now is a perfect time to launch a new product in the homebuilder market.

“There’s a huge opportunity at this point to provide a service-driven product with greater flexibility and alignment with what the builders currently need,” Hastings says. “We think it’s a perfect time to launch a new product with wording that really aligns the builder with the carrier.”

Homebuilders have been through a lot of change due to economic pressures, Hastings says. “There’s a lot that has changed and I think the insurance market has not fully appreciated the dynamics of builders, what they are building and the size of the projects they are building.”

Both Jansen and Hastings are veterans in the homebuilding insurance program arena. Together, they founded Jansen & Hastings Intermediaries Ltd., a managing general agency specializing in construction and healthcare in 1996.

Cove’s UK-based construction team will work closely with industry veterans George Dale and Mike Hopson in the U.S.

Dale most recently was with Aon’s Construction Services Group. Hopson for the last 12 years was vice president of Zurich Insurance’s residential construction unit where he pioneered the Home Builders Protection Policy.