Markel International revamps wholesale and national claims leadership

Specialist insurer Markel International has announced a new leadership team for claims across its wholesale and national markets businesses.

Chris O’Shea has been appointed claims director for wholesale at Merkel. With more than 19 years of technical claims handling experience in the London market, O’Shea was appointed as head of reinsurance claims for Markel in 2016.

In January, he was also put in charge of claims for specialty and financial lines.

Richard Napoli will become claims and legal services director for national markets. This extends his current UK responsibilities to include oversight of Canada and Europe.

Napoli has been at Markel for nine years, having trained at Irwin Mitchell. He was recently promoted to lead both the fee-paying legal team and claims for national markets, UK.

Sarah Wilcox takes on the role of operations director for claims, continuing to build on claims efficiency and data management.

Wilcox has spent 16 years at Markel, with 30 years of experience in the insurance industry overall. Most recently, she headed up underwriting support and change management before her move to manage the volume claims team.

William Stovin, president of Markel International, commented: “As both the wholesale and national markets sides of the business go from strength to strength, it has become increasingly apparent that we need to be more strategic in the claims support we provide for them. This new leadership team means that the different areas of the business will have more specialised management, tailored to suit the specific needs.

On the individuals, he added: “Chris, Richard and Sarah are all renowned, both internally and externally, for their drive, ambition and hard work in moving the Markel claims service forward and so were the perfect candidates to make up this new team. We’ve no doubt that they’ll work together brilliantly, to ensure synergy across our claims teams but also the specialist focus required for each area.”

Claims Media