HIIG launches E&S brokerage unit with Boland hire

Houston International Insurance Group (HIIG) has launched an excess and surplus (E&S) lines brokerage business unit led by Mark Boland, former president of E&S at The Hanover.

The new unit will provide liability and property solutions to the wholesale brokerage market. It will add an excess facility in the near future.

Boland was most recently at IAT Insurance as vice president, specialty, since September 2018, having previously been president of E&S at The Hanover, where he had worked since 2013. He has also held roles as president of Hermitage Insurance and senior vice president at Endurance.

Last November Boland took an eight-strong team from Hanover to join him at IAT, where he was appointed to lead the brokerage division of the Raleigh, North Carolina-based carrier’s specialty unit.

“HIIG’s commitment to the E&S brokerage market is compelling and I couldn’t be more excited to launch this new business unit,” Boland said. “Moreover, HIIG is on a path to becoming one of a few top-tier specialty insurance companies and I am excited to join the team in pursuit of those ambitions.”

Boland is joining up with another former Hanover executive in HIIG’s CEO Andrew Robinson, who took over at the company from Stephen Way in May this year. Robinson is The Hanover’s former specialty insurance president.

“We are thrilled to have Mark and other members of the team join HIIG to launch our E&S brokerage business,” Robinson said.

“This is exactly the type of specialty business HIIG wants to develop and pursue in the future. We are quickly becoming an organization where top-tier talent like Mark and the E&S brokerage team desire to be.”

In an interview with The Insurer just after he joined HIIG earlier this year, Robinson revealed the specialty carrier would target the addition of new underwriting teams and renewal rights transactions to capitalize on hard market conditions.

Houston, Texas-based HIIG, which grew gross written premium by 26 percent in 2019 to $878.3mn, will continue to focus on specialty business as it grows its book.