Optio has expanded its warranty and indemnity (W&I) business, with the specialty MGA hiring Paul Tominey as senior W&I underwriter and increasing its W&I line size for single risks from £12 million to £20.5 million.
Optio said that both moves will further strengthen its W&I proposition, helping it meet the increasing demand for transactional liability insurance for SMEs, where M&A activity remains high.
Tominey has 10 years of industry experience. He will report to Alex Smith, head of Optio’s SME transactional liability business. Tominey was previously senior associate at global law firm DLA Piper, where he advised primarily on buy-side, private equity-backed transactions. He is experienced in a range of sectors in the UK, US, Middle East and Nordic regions.
“Despite the COVID-related M&A slump, the SME market was resilient, retaining a high level of seller and investor confidence through 2020 and 2021,” Smith said. “As a result, our offering in the SME space has gone from strength to strength and, in addition to Paul’s appointment and our increase in line size, further hires are likely to help meet demand. Paul’s broad and specialist M&A experience will be enormously beneficial to us and our clients, and I am delighted to welcome him to Optio.”
“Under Alex’s leadership, our SME W&I proposition continues to expand considerably as an increasingly important area of specialism for Optio,” said Matthew Fosh, executive chairman of Optio Group. “The measures announced today will further strengthen Optio’s position in an area of the M&A market that continues to grow.”
