US insurance firm Crum & Forster has hired Donald Asadorian as vice-president for its new credit insurance unit.

Asadorian joined in mid-May and will be based in Morristown, New Jersey when the office reopens after disruptions caused by Covid-19 come to an end.

He will work alongside senior vice-president Daniel Sussman to grow the new political risk and trade credit unit, which currently has a team of four. Ranjini Pillay and Lawrence Kwon are the other two colleagues.

Asadorian leaves Liberty Mutual Insurance, where he had been serving as a senior underwriter since January last year.

He took on that position after nearly nine years as senior vice-president at Ironshore, which was bought out by Liberty in 2017.

He made the switch into that role and the insurance sector in 2010, having worked in trade, commodity and export finance positions at various banks in the preceding decades, serving as vice-president at TD Bank, WestLB and HypoVereinsbank.

Speaking about his new job at Crum & Forster, Asadorian tells GTR that he’ll focus on further developing many of his pre-existing relationships with brokers, as well as clients like export credit agencies, banks, multilaterals, corporates and trading companies.

He adds: “My main role will be underwriting transactions as they come in and helping to move the portfolio forward.”

According to Asadorian, the unit is currently focused on US and Canada but will be expanding into the European market. For Canadian business, Crum & Forster would work with its Canadian sister company, Northbridge, or other licensed Canadian entities.

“We have established a partnership with another licensed European partner with a go to market plan in Q3,” he adds.