Specialty insurer announces Americas CEO

Specialty insurer Mosaic Insurance has named Toby Smith as Americas CEO, effective July 23.

Based in New York, Smith will become a member of Mosaic’s leadership team and will be responsible for spearheading market engagement and profitable growth across Canada, the United States, and the wider Americas region, Mosaic said in a press release last week.

“He will be instrumental in continuing our growth trajectory and accelerating our strategic ambitions across specialty product lines globally and in the critical U.S. region,” says Mosaic’s co-CEO Mitch Blaser.

The global specialty insurer first opened a Toronto office in July 2022 and now serves clients across Canada in five highly technical specialty lines of business – cyber, transactional liability, financial institutions, professional liability and environmental liability.

Its expansion across Canada last year in these five product lines provides a unique hybrid underwriting model that allows the insurer to take a Lloyd’s syndicated approach locally in Canada, executives told Canadian Underwriter at the time. The model involves a Lloyd’s syndicate that takes the lead line on all the business written. In addition to deploying its own capacity, Mosaic also has other Lloyd’s syndicates, insurers and reinsurers providing underwriting capacity rather than reinsurance capacity.

“Our unique underwriting agency structure and syndicated products are delivering an impact across global markets, and the appointment of a high-caliber leader like Toby demonstrates our commitment to driving further profitable expansion through the Americas,” says co-CEO Mark Wheeler in the release. “As we gather momentum, he is the right person at the right time to scale up our business and help us seize the great opportunities ahead, and we look forward to working with him again.”

In his role, Smith will direct new product development and oversee Americas-focused lines of business, including the company’s three largest divisions — transactional liability, cyber, and environmental liability.

Smith brings more than 20 years’ experience in the specialty insurance industry, most recently as chief underwriting officer, North America specialty lines, for Liberty Mutual. He previously worked with Mosaic’s leadership at Ironshore Inc. from 2009, launching its environmental business. He held various positions, including president of environmental and president of E&S (excess and surplus) casualty.

Smith began his career at AIG. Prior to moving to underwriting, he managed a team in its environmental claims and coverage unit.

Mosaic launched in February 2021. Today, it has close to 180 employees in seven countries, with three of its offices — Toronto, New York and Chicago — in North America.