Beazley, the specialist Lloyd's insurer, has established a new environmental risks underwriting capability at Lloyd's, which will be headed by Nicholas Pearson, a senior member of Beazley's global environmental risks team.

Pearson has over a 10 years of experience in the sector as both a consultant and an underwriter. He will be focusing on fixed site environmental liability and pollution liability business for contractors and service firms.

Beazley specialty lines division head Adrian Cox said a year of Beazley established an experienced underwriting team, based in Philadelphia, to focus on environmental risks. The expansion into Lloyd’s is the natural next step in the development of global environmental offering.

"Many of the large clients we insure at Lloyd’s for commercial property and for architects and engineers professional liability risks confront significant environmental exposures, which we can now cover from the Beazley box at Lloyd’s," Cox said.

Pearson said the company has been seeing an increasing number of enquirers from existing clients who are looking for pollution coverage, so having the capability and expertise to look at these risks in Lloyd’s will offer real value-added.