People Moves: Specialty MGA Nirvana Taps Sompo’s Mannsdorfer for European Underwriting; Verlingue Hires Hiscox’s Bethell as Head of Private Clients
This edition of International People Moves details appointments at media, tech and cyber MGA, Nirvana, and the broker Verlingue.
A summary of these new hires follows here.
New Specialty MGA Nirvana Taps Sompo’s Mannsdorfer for European Underwriting
Nirvana, the newly launched media, tech and cyber managing general agent (MGA), announced it has appointed industry veteran Thomas M. Mannsdorfer as part of its leadership team to build out a European underwriting business.
Mannsdorfer has more than 20 years’ experience as a mergers and acquisitions (M&A) underwriter across European markets. He will lead a pan-European team of underwriters to develop a warranty and indemnity (W&I) portfolio focused on small-to-medium sized deals on the continent — an under-penetrated niche of the global W&I market. He will also take responsibility for the European business, an important growth area for Nirvana.
The team will be based in Barcelona, and it will focus on local products in local languages as well as English, and will be built upon strong relationships with regional and global brokers alike.
Prior to joining Nirvana, Mannsdorfer, a qualified lawyer, headed up European specialty underwriting at Sompo International. He also led Sompo’s Barcelona branch and underwriting hub. He previously served as director of M&A Insurance and chief underwriting officer (International) with ANV in Barcelona.
“Thomas is one of the most experienced M&A underwriters in Europe, and we are delighted that he has joined the founding team at Nirvana,” said Founding Director Kabir Chanrai. “We have ambitious plans to grow our European team, and Thomas’s successful track record of building out teams will play an important role in helping us to achieve this.”
Rob Jones, who has 25 years of underwriting expertise in the London and global markets, formed Nirvana Risk Partners in 2017 as a division of the Castel Underwriting Agencies MGA formation platform. In March 2023, he and Kabir Chanrai – an insurance-focussed private equity entrepreneur – purchased Nirvana from Castel in a management buyout and launched the platform.
Verlingue Hires Hiscox’s Bethell as Head of Private Clients
Verlingue Ltd., the UK chartered insurance broker, has appointed experienced specialist Jon Bethell as head of Private Clients under plans to rapidly expand and grow its existing high net worth (HNW) offering.
Bethell has almost two decade’s insurance experience and joins from insurer Hiscox where he worked for 12 years, supporting some of the UK’s largest brokers. He most recently managed the trading team. Previous roles included claims and underwriting functions at insurers Ageas and Aviva, respectively.
Bethell will be using his specialist expertise to develop a market leading HNW proposition at Verlingue and to deliver new growth and development opportunities.
“Jon is a real asset to Verlingue as we look to build out our existing private clients business,” commented Mike Latham, CEO, Verlingue Ltd.
“He has over a decade of experience in this sector and already has very strong relationships with many of our key insurer partners. His experience of building high performing insurance teams based across multiple locations will also ensure we can deliver on our ambitious growth targets in this sector.”