Jessica Huhn-Kenzik, SVP, U.S. Environmental, discusses the expansion of Sompo International’s environmental insurance offerings and the importance of instituting positive change for the Contractors Professional and Pollution market
In the last year, Sompo International has taken significant steps toward expanding our environmental insurance offerings, recognizing the market demand for specialized Contractors Professional and Pollution Liability products. Since joining Sompo International in March 2020 to head up the organization’s U.S. Insurance Environmental unit and launching our new products in June 2020 I have been able to build a team of experienced and passionate individuals from the ground up.
In bringing on an experienced and dynamic group of underwriters over the last year, we have been able to increase our capacity and write business to best protect facility owners, operators, and contractors. The last year has brought never-before faced challenges, and creating a new department and product offering in such a unique market has allowed us to truly think creatively about our solutions. At the time of our team’s inception, Sompo International had identified a gap in its current environmental offerings and saw a clear opportunity to offer more specialized products in the Professional Liability Errors & Omissions (E&O) space, specifically for contractors. Since then, we have introduced strong product offerings, the most important of which is our new Owners Form, a unique, all-encompassing policy form for owners that offers transactional site pollution, protective professional and owner-controlled contractors’ pollution and is offered only by Sompo International.
Sompo International’s foundation of collaboration and innovation has enabled our newly formed team to make true progress and institute significant, positive change for the Contractors Professional and Pollution market in just a short time with outside of the box solutions.
We are a small but mighty unit with Vice Presidents – Jessica Heflin and Maria Rozew, a newly hired Assistant Vice President in Monica Lapato, and Senior Underwriting Assistant, Joanne Walton. Our experienced team averages over 15 years of underwriting and claims experience in the environmental and construction professional insurance market. Coincidentally, we are all women who have worked together in various roles throughout our careers.
I am proud of what our team has accomplished in our short time at Sompo International. As we look toward the future, I see our team growing to a larger geographic footprint, continuing to grow a sustainable Contractors Professional and Pollution Liability book, and striving along the way to make a long-term, positive impact in the environmental space.