Tokio Marine Kiln appoints Oliver Wilcox as Head of Energy. Tokio Marine Kiln (TMK), an international specialty insurer, has announced the appointment of Oliver Wilcox as Head of Energy within its Marine and Energy division. In his new role, Wilcox will lead TMK's Energy underwriting business, with responsibility for underwriting strategy, portfolio performance and team development. He will work closely with brokers and clients to deliver tailored solutions across the energy sector. He will report to Alex Barnes, Departmental Head of Marine and Energy at TMK. Wilcox brings more than 15 years of Energy underwriting experience, having held a number of underwriting and leadership positions across upstream, midstream, downstream and renewable energy lines. He joins TMK after 15 years at Brit Insurance, where he most recently served as Class Underwriter - Energy. He began his career at AXIS Capital as an Energy Analyst. Vivek Syal, Chief Underwriting Officer at TMK, said, "Energy remains a strategically important class for TMK, and we have ambitious plans as we continue to develop our proposition as a market leader. As clients navigate the energy transition, emerging technologies, and increasingly complex risks, the value of specialist underwriting expertise continues to grow. Ollie's appointment demonstrates our commitment to investing in outstanding talent as we continue to build a leading underwriting team and in the future of our business." Barnes commented, "I am delighted to welcome Ollie to TMK in his role as Head of Energy. Ollie brings extensive underwriting expertise, a highly regarded market reputation and a proven track record of underwriting performance. His appointment reinforces its commitment to delivering specialist underwriting solutions to the Energy sector and demonstrates its priority to offer exceptional service to all its clients and brokers. Wilcox added, "The Energy sector is changing quickly, creating both new challenges and emerging opportunities for clients across the energy value chain. TMK's global and financial strength, as part of Tokio Marine, one of the largest insurance groups in the world, its reputation, highly experienced team, and collaborative and empowering culture were all strong draws for me. I'm looking forward to working with brokers and clients to build on the strong platform already in place."

Tokio Marine Kiln and EECF empower East London youth with immersive YES Day. In a powerful collaboration aimed at breaking down barriers to corporate employment, the East End Community Foundation (EECF) recently hosted its latest Youth Employment Support (YES) Day in partnership with international insurer Tokio Marine Kiln (TMK). The initiative, funded through donations to EECF's Life Chances campaign, bridges the gap between ambitious young people in East London and major global organisations operating right on their doorstep. YES was based upon the recommendations of the Impetus Ready for Work report which identified the skills young people need to find and keep work. The project is designed to help young people aged 18-25 who have gained an A-C+ in their Mathematics and English GCSE's. Some participants may have been unemployed for an extended period or could be at risk of becoming underemployed. The young people are not over or under achievers, they are in the middle range of achievement and need support. East End Community Foundation want to help those who come from disadvantaged backgrounds, including participants from ethnically diverse and white working-class backgrounds, who are often overlooked and left behind as they can face multiple barriers to becoming work ready. The candidates for this event were drawn from Poplar HARCA (Housing and Regeneration Community Association), a registered charity managing 10,000 homes in Poplar and Bow. Beyond its core housing duties, Poplar HARCA is deeply committed to upskilling residents and creating local economic opportunities. The YES Day served as a perfect extension of this mission, offering young participants direct access to the corporate world while equipping them with a comprehensive employability toolkit. "It was an amazing day I passed with respected people who arranged this YES Day Programme for young working professionals to help us build a strong network. I would like to thank all who were there from Tokio Marine kiln and HARCA to guide us and bring back my confidence again. Hopefully it will be a great journey with you," said Nusrat Jahan, one of the YES Day participants. An inside look at global risk. The event provided attendees with insight into the world of international insurance. Volunteers from TMK - a company specialising in underwriting complex risks, such as insuring aid workers in high-hazard environments - shared their career journeys and offered insight into the insurance industry. For many of the young attendees, the event transformed a corporate sector that previously felt invisible or inaccessible into a tangible career pathway. The packed itinerary balanced professional development with high-energy interactive sessions. To test teamworking, negotiation, analytical, and presentation skills under pressure, candidates were split into three teams for the popular "Spaghetti Tower Challenge." Armed only with sticks of spaghetti, tape, string, and playdough, participants were given five minutes to strategise and 20 minutes to construct the tallest freestanding structure - proving that collaboration and communication are just as vital as technical know-how. Realistic mock interviews and constructive mentorship. A cornerstone of the day was the mock interview segment, designed to mirror real-world corporate recruitment processes in a supportive, low-pressure environment. Led by TMK professionals, including Project Management Team Manager Ann Smith, the structured 30-minute sessions gave many participants their very first taste of a formal interview. Interviewers dedicated 20 minutes to evaluating general competencies - focusing on personal motivation, core values, future goals, and professionalism - before dedicating 10 minutes to vital feedback. Using the STAR (Situation, Task, Action, Result) methodology, TMK volunteers provided constructive guidance, highlighting individual strengths in communication and gently offering actionable advice on how to structure answers and project confidence. By blending practical CV workshops and speed networking with authentic interview experience, the TMK and EECF YES Day succeeded in giving East London's youth the tangible tools, insights, and confidence required to kickstart their professional journeys. EECF's Project Coordinator, Danielle Devlin said: "I want to thank all the TMK team and your fabulous volunteers for hosting a wonderful day for the young people that attended. You delivered a really special YES event and made the young people feel welcomed, valued, respected and like they belonged there as future employees, which is no mean feat."

Clearwater expands beyond marine with Upstream Energy hire from TMK. Richard Hooks joins after two decades at Tokio Marine Kiln to build Clearwater's Upstream Energy proposition from the ground up. Clearwater Underwriting has appointed Richard Hooks (pictured) as managing director, upstream energy, as the marine-focused specialty underwriter continues expanding its platform into new lines of business. Hooks will lead the establishment and growth of Clearwater's upstream energy offering, building a dedicated proposition for brokers and clients as part of the firm's strategy to diversify across a broader range of specialty and niche classes. Hooks joins from Tokio Marine Kiln, where he spent more than 20 years, most recently as departmental head of marine and energy. In that role he oversaw a energy portfolio spanning upstream and energy-transition risk with a maximum combined line size of $100 million, and led a series of senior hires into TMK's energy team, including bringing in Beazley's former head of energy in 2024. He brings deep technical underwriting expertise across energy and marine, along with established relationships across the international specialty market. Building a new line from the ground up. At Clearwater, Hooks will be responsible for developing the upstream energy portfolio with a focus on combining technical underwriting expertise with the agility of the MGA model, positioning the new offering as a specialist alternative for brokers in a highly technical class, backed by Clearwater's underwriting capability, technology and capacity partnerships. Hooks said upstream energy remains a highly technical market as the risks, technologies and capital behind it continue to evolve, making experience, underwriting judgement and a willingness to consider risk differently critical to a successful offering. He said what attracted him to Clearwater was the opportunity to build an underwriting proposition around those fundamentals while retaining the flexibility to respond quickly to brokers and clients, calling it a rare opportunity to build a business from the ground up within an ambitious underwriting platform. Richard Young, chief underwriting officer at Clearwater, said upstream energy is a market where technical expertise and underwriting judgement matter particularly given the complexity and scale of the risks involved. He said Hooks brings decades of experience across energy and marine along with a detailed understanding of how the market is changing, allowing Clearwater to enter the class with a clear focus on disciplined underwriting and long-term portfolio quality while giving brokers the responsiveness central to the Clearwater model. Part of a rapid build-out since Aquiline's investment. The hire continues a pattern of rapid diversification at Clearwater since private equity firm Aquiline Capital Partners took a majority stake in the business in November 2025. Founded in 2023 and beginning underwriting in 2024, Clearwater built its initial reputation in marine and subsea cable insurance, offering products including port risks, builders risks and war cover, underpinned by a data-driven underwriting model developed with its own Clearwater Dynamics software platform. Aquiline's investment was explicitly aimed at accelerating both organic and inorganic growth toward what the firm described as an institutionalised, technology-enabled platform spanning multiple specialty lines and geographies. That expansion has moved quickly. Clearwater entered crisis management earlier this year with the hire of a managing director focused on active assailant and terrorism and political violence cover from Aspen Insurance Group, and has now added upstream energy as a second new specialty class, both hires bringing in specialists with two decades or more of experience from established insurers rather than building capability through junior recruitment. Expanding its specialty market skills. Two new specialty lines launched within months of each other, each led by a hire with 15 to 20 years at a single major insurer, suggests Clearwater's post-investment strategy is less about incremental growth within marine and more about rapidly assembling a genuinely multi-line MGA while Aquiline's capital is fresh. For brokers, that means Clearwater is becoming a broader specialty market relationship rather than a marine specialist worth knowing for one class only, though the real test will be whether a platform built quickly across several technical, judgement-heavy classes can sustain the same underwriting discipline in each that made its original marine book credible.