Kiln, a UK-based insurance and reinsurance underwriting group, has opened a new office in Frankfurt, Germany.
The Frankfurt office will focus on marine insurance and in particular a number of specialist classes where Kiln has technical expertise and can offer high levels of capacity.
The office will provide on-the-ground service directly to its producing brokers with local team, who will have total underwriting and claims authority for its principal lines of business.
The new office will be managed by Marcus Zapfe. He will join Kiln with over 20 years of experience. Most recently at Ace where he was regional marine underwriting manager for Germany, Austria and Switzerland.
Kiln regional managing director for Europe Olivier Terlinden said that the German market is highly sophisticated and therefore well suited to Kiln’s focus on niche products.
“The new office in Frankfurt will service the whole territory with underwriting decisions also taken in Germany,” Terlinden said.
Kiln group Business Development director Roger Bickmore said that by having their own people on the ground they plan to strengthen their network of relationships in Germany and be better positioned to respond to the opportunities that await the company.