Insurance company Markel International has opened its first Indian office, located in Mumbai.

The office will offer specialist reinsurance products to local Indian insurers, in fields including marine, energy, contingency and financial risks.

It will be led by Deepika Mathur, who joins Markel India as CEO. She previously worked for the insurer as a consultant, after spending the bulk of her career in India’s insurance market, including with HDFC Ergo, Almondz, Marsh and JLT. She started her career as a risk manager in the Mumbai Stock Exchange.

She says the firm is now writing business in India and is “very pleased with the response we’ve had from the domestic market”.

Matt Cannock, the managing director for Asia, says that establishing the office in Mumbai has been a “complex undertaking”. He adds: “Deepika will be instrumental in providing Markel with access to the local reinsurance market. We are looking forward to servicing our existing relationships better and to starting many more new ones.”