Simon Gallagher News

Moore Stephens has further strengthened its regulatory advisory capability with the appointment of John Westlake as compliance manager. John Westlake has a broad perspective of the insurance industry acquired through a variety of roles, which has enabled him to support insurers and brokers in establishing effective compliance solutions. He has a strong commercial background, having acted as operations director with a personal lines insurer, compliance director with a commercial insurance broker and most recently training and advising senior management in the management of risk at JLT Group. He also worked with the FSA advising insurance intermediaries on regulation.

Leading insurance accountant and consultant, Moore Stephens, is to boost its governance, risk and assurance team with the recruitment of two leading practitioners, Gary Oliver and Gavin Davey. Currently a partner at Mazars, Gary Oliver is well-known in the London market, providing governance, risk and assurance services and acting as head of internal audit to a range of clients including Lloyd’s agencies and syndicates, insurers and reinsurers. He has strong commercial experience…

Moore Stephens says that current trends in the UK insurance industry point towards further consolidation and convergence in the underwriting and broking sectors over the next twelve months. In the latest issue of the Moore Stephens’ newsletter Insured Interest, Simon Gallagher, head of the firm’s Insurance Industry Group, says, “Consolidation has been a feature of the insurance industry for some years now, but there may be still some way to go. There are still a lot of potential buyers with large war-chests, willing to pay over and above what market intelligence might suggest is a realistic price. An underwriting period free of catastrophic losses, and a similar, concurrent period of healthy profits for insurers, has also increased the amount of capital in the market.

Shipping accountant and business consultant Moore Stephens has appointed six new partners. One, Steve Durman, is an expert on employment issues and has advised a number of shipping companies on effective structuring of employment terms for seafarers and shore-based personnel. Steve Durman has specialised in employer support for fifteen years, after joining Moore Stephens from the DHSS. He has particular expertise in advising UK-based shipping companies on employment packages. In the last nine months Moore Stephens has added fifty fee earners to service its growing workload. Andrew Galli and Simon Gallagher (both Insurance Industry Group), Deborah Pearce (Enfield office), Tom Ward (Audit Services Group) and Paul Clark (UK Business Group) have also been appointed partners.

95% of insurers who responded to a recent risk management survey conducted by leading insurance accountant and consultant Moore Stephens said they identified regulatory risk as the single biggest challenge facing them over the next two years - ahead of operational and financial risk. And 93% of responses from brokers placed regulatory risk at the top of the two-year agenda, ahead of strategic and financial risk. The Moore Stephens risk management survey showed that most firms were aware of the risk management requirements demanded by the regulators relative to their own businesses. Only 6% of respondents considered that they were not as informed as they should be about the requirements.

Moore Stephens say there are big gaps in the U.K. insurance industry’s application and understanding of FSA requirements on contract certainty. While acknowledging that a lot of work has been put in by the London Market Reform Group, among others, Moore Stephens says the target of achieving between 75 and 80 percent compliance looks optimistic, at best. The FSA is to review the industry’s performance and it is understood that later this month it may decide to adopt a more rigorous approach to enforcement. Moore Stephens Insurance Industry Group partner Simon Gallagher says that firms should be monitoring their progress in terms of trying to meet contract certainty targets.

Financial and insurance consultant Moore Stephens has warned brokers and other intermediaries to ensure that their systems and controls covering the treatment of client money meet the regulatory requirements laid down by the Financial Services Authority. Moore Stephens notes that the FSA has recently visited the offices of 15 intermediaries and reviewed their handling of client money, in addition to addressing the issue in a similar number of risk assessments involving other firms. The FSA has written to the chief executives of all general insurance intermediaries with its findings, and this will doubtless make uncomfortable reading for brokers and intermediaries.