Heath swaps Sydney for Singapore to run new regional hub

He has only been with Arthur J. Gallagher for a year, but Australian national practice leader in specialty lines Richard Heath is now in charge of the company’s new Singapore hub.

Heath will head up a 15-strong team working on retail marine cargo and trade credit, wholesale property and energy, and reinsurance. The former New South Wales state manager at AIG will also maintain an involvement in Australia as head of FinPro Asia Pacific.

Heath replaces Freddie Lim as Singapore MD. Lim founded specialist broker ITI Solutions, which was bought by Arthur J. Gallagher in 2011. He remains with the business as a director and trade credit and political risk practitioner.

Chairman of Asia-Pacific for Arthur J. Gallagher John Hastings-Bass said that Heath’s specialty line expertise would assist in maximising the company’s potential for profitable growth across the region.

“Asia represents a strong business development opportunity for the international divisions of Arthur J. Gallagher, and our experts in Singapore have created a first-class platform for further expansion,” Hastings-Bass said.

Arthur J. Gallagher is the brand name for international insurance brokerage and risk management services firm Arthur J. Gallagher & Co. outside of the United States, including Australia and Singapore.

In August 2013, the firm’s head of reinsurance in Singapore Maxwell Sung told SR that the APAC reinsurance division was expanding across several core specialty lines, including trade credit and political risk cover, marine cargo and hull.

Sung said at the time that AJG’s APAC portfolio primarily consisted of property, energy and construction reinsurance.

“On top of that, we have marine cargo reinsurance and terrorism reinsurance,” he said. “We believe that these are the areas where we’re going to see strong growth. At the same time, we believe our core business, which is the property class of business, will continue to grow.”