Berkshire Hathaway Specialty Insurance Company will start doing business in Dubai and staff its office there with AIG and AXA veterans.

BHSI has its insurance license from the Dubai Financial Services Authority in hand and has opened an office in the Dubai International Financial Center, it noted.

Mark Breuil, president of Asia Middle East, BHSI, said that the office will help BHSI serve markets in the Middle East and beyond that need insurance or reinsurance support in the global financial hub, which serves the Middle East, Africa and South Asai. Plans call for providing a number of specialty and commercial insurance/reinsurance products to BHSI’s network of brokers and ceding companies, with a focus on construction, energy, property, marine, casualty, and executive and professional lines.

To run the Dubai office, BHSI named Alessandro Cerase as its senior executive officer there and Neeraj Yadvendu as deputy senior executive officer and head of Third Party Lines for the Middle East. Cerase will also be leading First Party Lines for BHSI’s broader Asia Middle East region, which includes BHSI’s other regional hubs of Hong Kong and Singapore and its operations in Malaysia and Macau.

Cerase comes to BHSI with 20 years of global experience in both the engineering and underwriting sides of the insurance business. He was most recently global head of Energy and Engineered Risk at AIG.

Yadvendu joins BHSI after two decades in the insurance industry, most recently as regional head of Casualty and Financial Lines at AXA Asia.

Source: Berkshire Hathaway Specialty Insurance Company