Pen Underwriting invests in construction and casualty specialism with quartet of new underwriting hires
Published On : 27 Jul 2026
Pen Underwriting, the multi-class multi-territory managing general agent (MGA), has made four underwriting appointments into its specialist UK Construction & Casualty practice, expanding its footprint of regionally based casualty underwriters with hires into its Birmingham and Liphook offices, as well as London.
Dawn Strong has been appointed Senior Casualty Underwriter and joins Pen’s Liphook office in Hampshire today, bringing more than 20 years’ commercial insurance experience. Having established her career representing clients on the broking side, Dawn later transferred her skills into underwriting and joins from Zurich Insurance where she has spent the past three years as Trading Underwriter.
In Birmingham, Ravi Banger has joined Pen as Casualty Underwriter. A specialist liability underwriter with over a decade of industry experience, Ravi brings technical underwriting expertise in complex risks, combined with valuable insight gained from an insurance career which began in customer services and claims. He joins from NFU Mutual where he was Corporate Insurance Liability Underwriter, having previously worked for Zurich, LV, Wesleyan and Direct Line Group.
Meanwhile the London team has been expanded with the recent appointment of Ollie Jochimsen, also as Casualty Underwriter. Joining Pen from Lloyd’s broker Bridge Specialty International, Oliver’s years of casualty risk experience come with a deep understanding of what brokers and their clients need in this specialist area of underwriting. Also joining the Construction & Casualty team in London this month is Josh Murphy, as Assistant Underwriter.
Commenting on the quartet of hires, Paul Murphy, Managing Director of Construction & Casualty at Pen, said: “Every specialist underwriting business with ambitious growth plans needs to keep investing in people to ensure broker response times, access to decision-making underwriters and the ability to offer competitive and appropriate risk solutions keep pace with business expansion. That’s why we are delighted to welcome Dawn, Ravi, Ollie and Josh into the team, and it’s great to be deepening our casualty underwriting expertise across the regional markets and brokers that we serve.
“With a comprehensive construction footprint able to cater for the vast majority of trades, from high risk to general builders – and a specialist liability team whose expertise stretches well beyond construction into retail, recycling, manufacturing and much more – our broad underwriting appetite needs great people to keep delivering quality service and coverage to our broker partners and their clients.”
