The newly-created role involves, among other areas, a drive to grow the distribution of private placement life insurance for European clients. A development of insurance solutions for the UK, South Africa, Switzerland and US is envisaged down the road.

Stonehage Fleming – now in the process of being acquired by US-based Corient – said yesterday that it has appointed Patrick Guarda in the newly-formed role as global head of insurance solutions, effective 1 September. Guarda will be based in Zurich and report to Mark McMullen, partner and CEO of the family office business.

Before this position, Guarda worked as head of wealth planning – life insurance for Europe and Switzerland – at UBS. He was also board chairman for the Swiss bank’s in-house French insurance broker.

Guarda, who brings more than 20 years of leadership experience in life insurance, wealth planning and tax, led expert teams across multiple insurance products, locations and markets and spearheaded the expansion of the insurance distribution business. Prior to his time at UBS, he worked as a tax advisor for international law firms including Clifford Chance and SJ Berwin. He holds advanced degrees in law, finance and wealth management, and was admitted to the Paris Bar in 2001.

Strategy
In his new role, Guarda will build out Stonehage Fleming’s insurance solutions globally across the firm’s offices, product types and client markets. His immediate strategic priorities will be first to grow the private placement life insurance distribution offering of the Luxembourg office for clients resident in the European Economic Area (EEA), initially focusing on France, Italy, Belgium and Spain. He will also expand and systematise the group’s property insurance distribution offering through the Jersey office, notably for assets held in Stonehage Fleming trusts, such as fine art and collectables, real estate, jewellery, cars, vessels and aircraft

Further ahead, Guarda will coordinate the phased rollout of the group’s insurance solutions in other markets such as the UK, South Africa, Switzerland and the US. Stonehage Fleming will set up a global governance framework to make the rollout possible, setting consistent standards across locations for product oversight and regulatory compliance, risk management and controls, pricing discipline, and operations.

WealthBriefing has written before on the use of private placement life insurance in wealth managers' toolkits. (See here and here.)

Stonehage Fleming advises on more than £135 billion ($170 billion) of assets.