Convex, a newly established international specialist insurer and reinsurer, has made three appointments in London over the last few months as it builds a political and credit risk team.

A spokesperson for the firm tells GTR that the team will write credit and contract frustration risks for policy periods up to 10.5 years and political risks up to 15 years. It plans further hires over the coming months.

The political risks team is led by Navaid Farooq, who joined Convex in April as head of political risks and developing enabling insurances. He was previously the managing director at Anvil Underwriting from 2016, and before that led the credit and political risks team at Catlin, where he had been for eight years. Farooq joined the insurance market in 2002, working at Zurich Financial Services, having been recruited from S&P where he worked as a sovereign credit analyst since 1999.

Murray Ross joins Convex this month as deputy head of political and credit risk. Ross has been working in the London insurance market for over 20 years, specialising in the political risk and credit sector. He moves from his position of head of political risks and credit Europe at Chubb (Ace European Group), where he had been since 2003. Prior to this he worked at Marsh as a broker for three years.

Siena Pringle joined the team in April as trainee underwriter, political and credit risk. She initially started at Convex in 2019, working for the chief underwriting officer. Pringle began her career in political and credit risk insurance in 2017 at Neon Underwriting.

Convex was formed in 2019 by industry veterans Stephen Catlin and Paul Brand with US$1.7bn of initial committed capital to underwrite insurance and reinsurance for complex specialty risks.