Boland brings former Hanover team to HIIG

Houston International Insurance Group’s (HIIG) newly appointed head of its E&S brokerage unit Mark Boland has brought in several members of his former Hanover underwriting team from IAT, including Josh O’Neill, Paul Gadaleta, Joe Marques and Jeff Love, The Insurer understands.

O’Neill, Gadaleta and Marques have all been named underwriting directors of the unit, according to their LinkedIn profiles. Love’s position has not been confirmed.

As previously reported, HIIG unveiled the launch of the new unit earlier this week (1 September), 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 also add an excess facility in the near future.

Boland joined from IAT Insurance two years after moving to the specialty insurer from The Hanover.

Last November he took an eight-strong team from The 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.

From that eight-strong team, O’Neill, Gadaleta, Marques and Love are now confirmed as following Boland to HIIG.

Others in the team that were bought to IAT but that have not been confirmed as joining HIIG include Pierson Jones, Dan Kearney, Matt Love and John Puccio.

Prior to joining The Hanover in 2013 Boland held roles as president of Hermitage Insurance and senior vice president at Endurance.

Commenting earlier this week, Boland said: “HIIG’s commitment to the E&S brokerage market is compelling and I couldn’t be more excited to launch this new business unit.

“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.”

The move reunites him 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.