DUAL launches new capability in Title Insurance in Australia & New Zealand

DUAL Australia today announced the launch of a new business line offered by DUAL’s specialist title insurance team, DUAL Asset. The primary focus will be (i) real estate transactions involving commercial real estate located in Australia, New Zealand, Hong Kong and Singapore and (ii) M&A transactions involving target companies and trusts across markets including Australia, New Zealand, Hong Kong, Singapore, Japan and South Korea. The team will be led by Chris Hammond, Head of Asia Pacific for DUAL Asset.

The product range includes:

• Title to real estate (including the ability to cover identified issues or defects)
• Title to securities, such as shares, units and comparable ownership interests (including the ability to cover identified issues or defects)
• Fundamental warranty top-up insurance (also known as “excess W&I”).

Title insurance products are designed to help sellers, buyers and financiers manage and allocate certain legal and financial risks associated with (or identified during) a transaction process.

AXA XL, DUAL Asset’s long standing title insurance capacity partner, is providing capacity for the full product range via its Syndicate 2003 at Lloyd’s. Insurable limits of up to USD 150 m per policy are available.

Damien Coates, CEO DUAL Asia Pacific: added: “At DUAL, we have always focused on helping our distribution network grow their business, and we’re extremely excited that this launch offers a valuable and specialist range of products for our broker partners and their clients. DUAL Asset has a strong heritage of over 10 years as a leading provider of title insurance in the UK and mainland Europe and I am confident this provides great additional choice in this specialist sector.”

Chris Hammond said: “We’re absolutely delighted to be bringing our DUAL Asset title insurance solutions to the Asia Pacific region. This is the first step in building out a full transaction risk offering in the region, and we’re looking forward to expanding our portfolio later in 2024.”

About DUAL ASSET

DUAL Asset is part of the DUAL Group and was established in 2013. DUAL Asset is one of the world’s leading international legal indemnity underwriters and employs 60+ insurance, property and legal professionals, insuring over USD 900m worth of assets across 52 countries.

DUAL Asset offers insurance that helps protect against legal risks relating to ownership (“title”) and use of real estate and/or ownership of shares in companies, units in unit trusts (and comparable ownership interests). The policies, broadly categorised, fall into two forms, being (i) a policy covering unknown issues that existed at the time of acquisition, but which were only discovered following completion and/or (ii) a policy covering identified issues that are known about prior to completion of the transaction and/or which were discovered during due diligence.

For more information please visit
https://www.dualaustralia.com.au/underwriting/transaction-risks/title-insurance or https://www.dualnewzealand.co.nz/underwriting/transaction-risks/title-insurance

About DUAL

DUAL, the specialist underwriting arm of Howden Group, is driven by a mission to be the MGA of choice for brokers, clients and carriers, through provision of deep underwriting expertise and global distribution. DUAL Group is one of the world’s largest international underwriting agencies with USD 3.5bn of GWP.

DUAL’s investment in data and technology enables it to deliver over 70 products and services with speed and efficiency to 11,000 broker partners working with over 70 carrier partners worldwide.

Established in 1998, today DUAL has over 1,700 people in 21 countries across the Americas, Europe and Asia Pacific, and is one of Lloyd’s’ largest international coverholders.

For more information please visit www.dualgroup.com  

About Howden

Howden is a leading global insurance group with employee ownership at its heart. Founded in 1994, it provides insurance broking, reinsurance broking and underwriting services and solutions to clients ranging from individuals to the largest multinational companies.

The group operates in 50 countries across Europe, Africa, Asia, the Middle East, Latin America, the USA, Australia and New Zealand, employing 17,000 people and handling USD 38bn of premium on behalf of clients.

For more information, please visit www.howdengroup.com and www.howdengroupholdings.com

For more information, please visit www.howdengroupholdings.com  

Press contacts

FTI Consulting:

Izzy Ashe

+44 (0)798 924 1053

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Howden Group:

Sam Horril

+ 44 (0)7706 352 108

[email protected]