30th June 2008: The Hyperion Insurance Group today announced that VK Howden, the joint venture established in Miami by its broking division Howden, will fully adopt the Howden brand. With immediate effect, the business will now operate under the name of Howden Insurance, LLC.

VK Howden was launched in July 2006 and initially focused on developing wholesale broking opportunities in Latin America. Led by Bobby Vernon and Matt Kelly, the business has gone from strength to strength and now manages operations in Argentina, Brazil, Colombia and Puerto Rico.

The business has specialized in the ‘hard to place’ segment of the liability insurance market and has recently expanded to more general lines of liability business including commercial third party liability, product liability, and product exports. The company currently has a solid market share position in the region and hopes to continue building its business through both product and regional expansion.

Commenting on the rebrand, Howden’s Chief Executive, Tim Coles said: “Bobby and Matt have led their team to achieve great success over the past 18 months, and are undoubtedly maximising the opportunity we foresaw in the specialist liability market in Latin America. Now is the logical moment for the business to adopt the full Howden brand. We plan to aggressively grow our presence further in the region, fully leverage the group’s global platform, and build a brand synonymous with unparalleled service and solving problems where others have failed to deliver.

Howden is the broking division of the Hyperion Insurance Group, one of the UK’s fastest growing independently owned insurance companies. A specialist in worldwide liability and crime insurance, it has operations in 17 countries around the world including two operations in the United States of America. The Group was awarded a Queen’s Award for Enterprise in International Trade in 2007.