Meet Adam Taylor, Miller’s new Head of Upstream Energy for North America

We’re delighted to welcome Adam back into the Miller fold. Adam joins to lead Miller’s upstream energy growth in North America, as well as working closely with colleagues to define and implement Miller’s wider offering to intermediaries across the territory. 

Adam specialises in placing business across both upstream and midstream sectors and has travelled extensively across North America meeting with clients to better understand their risk needs. 

We recently caught up with Adam on the team’s growth ambitions and how they’ve been helping North American intermediaries solve challenging problems for their clients utilising the London and international markets.

Tell us a little about the team 

Miller’s energy team is made up of roughly 50 specialists spanning Upstream, Midstream, Downstream, Power, Renewables, Casualty, and Construction. The North American Upstream Energy team has 15 direct members with diverse backgrounds and experiences that combine to complement each other in the best interests of our client base. We have a broad range of specialisation spanning individuals with 30+ years’ experience all the way down to bright, hungry grads. The team has grown in recent years with some excellent new hires from across the industry, including Charlie Clarke, Alex Taylor, and Sarah Belchamber, further deepening our specialist knowledge and experience. 

What type of accounts and risks can you help domestic brokers with?

Our team focusses on risks that span the Upstream Energy industry, from the largest deep-water offshore operators and contractors, to the smallest onshore start-ups. Having this breadth of capability means we are perfectly aligned with our intermediary clients, as they tend not to focus on one particular facet of upstream energy. Crucially, as the industry has evolved, so too has our product offering and we pride ourselves on developing solutions for evolving and challenging exposures that create new risks. Salt Water Disposal is a good example where we are actively providing solutions, (no pun intended !) for clients in a marketplace that is extremely distressed. 

Any other recent successes to share?

Absolutely. We were recently appointed on a midstream account and delivered a flat renewal in a market that is seeing 15%+ rate increases. In order to achieve this we dissected the insured schedule in an effort to identify the key exposures, we then restructured the placement keeping the expiring premium spend unchanged. 

Another recent success saw us leverage our market relationships to keep rates flat for some service contractor clients after valuations collapsed due to industry decline. And as I mentioned before, thanks to a massive team effort, we’ve successfully placed three very challenging Salt Water Disposal accounts in the past month, which is arguably the area under the most capacity scrutiny and rating pressure in our market.

What are the team’s growth ambitions?

We’re very ambitious. We have hired extremely well, both experienced and new talent, and now have the foundation building blocks in place to execute our growth plans. To achieve our plans we need to stay focused on our core goal which is to continue to help our clients to win and retain business. By adding more resource and continually honing our capabilities the more we can do to help them achieve growth. This process is well underway so we’re excited for the future.

Finally, how does your team work with the rest of Miller’s Energy division and wider North American team? 

We work very closely with our onshore team, specifically in relation to midstream energy accounts where there is a direct crossover with both clients and markets. We also work closely with our construction and casualty colleagues. We have held a number of combined client video conference calls recently, leading to a flow of new opportunities. There are no silos at Miller and we have a culture that promotes collaborative business development, so working closely with the wider North America team comes readily. A client first philosophy throughout Miller makes this very easy throughout. This enables us to work very effectively with clients whose operations require multiple lines of coverage and means that our insurance solutions can be seamless.

Other new joiners

James Pegg – Onshore energy

James has joined our onshore energy team as an Account Executive, following almost 8 years in a global brokers’ energy team. He is responsible for the design and placement of downstream energy, midstream, power & utility and construction risks into the London and International (re)insurance markets. James is predominantly focused on the servicing of existing and development of new clients in the North American territory.

He specialises in downstream and midstream energy risks and has extensive experience working with complex clients of varying size and geographical footprints. This includes co-ordination across multiple lines way beyond his energy focus and in the interests of clients.

James is an OIL accredited member of staff with the qualification in London Market Insurance from the Chartered Insurance Institute.

Oliver Curry – Sports & Entertainment

Oliver has joined our sports and entertainment team as another member of their fast growing broking team. 

He joins Miller from another London broker having spent nearly 6 years in the market. Primarily, Oliver will be working on sports A&H business, both client facing and placing it into the London and international markets. Oliver has experience across all sport and entertainment in many different lines of business, but specifically in motorsport and ball sports (football, rugby, tennis, golf and cricket).

Highly aware and involved in technology and its client service advantages he has previously designed and delivered specific insurance Apps.  

Oliver holds the Certificate CII professional qualification.

It’s great to see the continuous growth of our North American team - Welcome aboard our new joiners!