Lexington launches middle market casualty team

Lexington Insurance Company, a subsidiary of American International Group (AIG), has announced the launch of the Lexington Middle Market Casualty team, a group of underwriters focused on providing insurance coverage to small and medium-sized businesses. The launch substantially expands the company’s market reach beyond upper middle market and large enterprises.

The team is headed by Paul McLaughlin, senior underwriting manager for Lexington. It includes underwriters from Lexington Casualty and its affiliated Western World Small Commercial Brokerage teams, and will focus on providing general liability coverage to businesses with annual premiums between $7,500 and $75,000.

The group will provide coverage to classes of business in construction, manufacturing, and the commercial, service, retail and real estate sectors, Lexington said.

“The launch of Lexington’s Middle Market Casualty team is an important next step in expanding our presence in the SME space as part of our overall middle market strategy,” said Lou Levinson, president and CEO of Lexington Insurance Company. “This is a new team focused on a segment that makes up a large portion of US private-sector GDP. We see tremendous opportunity to help our wholesale brokers and their clients in this segment gain more certainty and resilience in their coverage needs.”

Read next: Lexington CEO confident in surplus lines market’s ongoing momentum

“Business issues and risks for small and medium-sized businesses can be as complex for their management teams as risks faced by larger companies,” said Neil Smallcombe, head of Lexington Casualty. “Lexington is providing its capacity, claims capabilities, and longstanding expertise with the largest, most complex risks in the market to sophisticated, smaller operators across important commercial classes.”

“We’ve begun working with select brokers to reach this expansive pool of clients,” McLaughlin said. “The opportunity for smaller enterprises to access Lexington’s expertise and capacity has been a welcomed development for the market.”