AXA XL has appointed Sylvain Bouteillé as the new chief underwriting officer (CUO) for its Specialty Americas division.

In this role, Bouteillé will lead the development and implementation of the regional strategy for the Specialty insurance unit.

He will oversee areas such as aviation, fine art and specie, ocean marine, political risk, structured risk solutions, terrorism and political violence, trade credit and commercial bonds, and war, the company said.

Based in New York, Bouteillé will report to Donna Nadeau, head of large commercial, Americas.

Bouteillé will collaborate with local underwriting teams and business partners to provide “innovative”, customer-focused solutions across the specialty lines.

Bouteillé joins AXA XL from AIG, where he served as head of trade credit for the Americas.

Nadeau said: “Sylvain’s extensive global experience in insurance and his deep understanding of complex risk transfer solutions make him a fantastic candidate to advance our strategic ambitions in the Americas’ Specialty market.”

With 30 years of experience in the reinsurance sector, he has expertise in credit risk, multinational programmes and strategic leadership, having worked in the US, Japan, Switzerland and France.

His previous roles include global co-head of P&C [property and casualty] international programmes and head of sales North America for Swiss Re Corporate Solutions, alongside senior positions in credit risk management.

AXA XL, the property, casualty and specialty risk division of AXA, offers insurance and risk management solutions to mid-sized companies, multinational corporations and individuals globally.

AXA recently secured a £680m (€781.53m) ruling against Santander in a London court over the mis-selling of payment protection insurance (PPI).

The case centred on losses from PPI mis-selling complaints linked to policies underwritten by two companies AXA acquired from Genworth in 2015, which were initially sold by a company Santander purchased in 2009.