Kenneth Underhill has over 25 years in the London Insurance market and is the former General Counsel of Chubb European Group, then ACE. He was responsible for Legal, Compliance and Corporate Governance across the EMEA region. Prior to that Kenneth was a founding partner of the Commercial & Regulatory team at Reynolds Porter Chamberlain. He is the founding director of ICSR and alongside his own advisory work, manages our Talent Pool of consultants.
Born in Brisbane, Australia and educated at schools on the Gold Coast, Queensland and in Surrey, England, Kenneth has a law degree from the Queensland University of Technology and a Masters of Law from LSE, a part of London University. He was admitted to the roll as a solicitor in England and Wales in 1991 and in 1994 he moved in-house at Lowndes Lambert, as Assistant Group Solicitor covering a broad spectrum of issues and topics.
After 6 years he left Heath Lambert as it had become and joined Reynolds Porter Chamberlain shortly after which he was made a partner and helped launch their Commercial and Regulatory practice. In 2007 he joined ACE European Group as the General Counsel, responsible for legal, company secretariat and compliance across the EMEA region.
Kenneth has significant experience working for and advising regulated organisations on a broad range of compliance, risk and governance issues including:
- involvement in many regulatory disciplinary proceedings both at Lloyd’s and for FCA and PRA regulated entities.
- numerous business reviews including skilled persons reviews and subsequent remediation exercises covering everything from business and distribution models to conduct risk, governance and culture.
- providing due diligence support on a significant number of acquisitions and advising on the consequential restructures.
- advising on a range of cross-border mergers and other corporate activity, including advising numerous UK and international firms on the implications of Brexit.
- supporting a variety of other corporate activity such as IPOs, joint ventures, business transfers and the development of businesses in new territories including assisting in the setting up of new business and distribution arrangements as well as making applications for regulatory authorisation.
- acting as a director of regulated entities trading in over 30 countries with a combined turnover totalling more than $5 billion.
- acting in approved capacities by the regulators in each country where approval was required including being an Approved Person for the 5th or 6th largest regulated insurance company in the UK.
- the development of a deep understanding of both UK and international corporate governance.
- creating, evolving and embedding governance, risk and compliance frameworks for all types and sizes of regulated entities in the insurance sector.
- development of the market standard binding authority wordings which are now used for almost all delegated underwriting in the Lloyd’s market and worked with the market to develop the approach and regulatory requirements for the outsourcing and oversight of delegated underwriting.
- advising clients on all compliance and regulatory aspects of a wide range of thematic and other reviews instigated by the FCA, PRA and Lloyd’s.
- undertaking Board Effectiveness reviews and advising boards on the appropriate governance structures and controls.
- providing compliance and governance training and mentoring to senior management function holders.
