Duo to set up motor insurance intermediary

Steve Hardy 16

Former Ageas UK retail commercial director Brendan Devine and former AXA UK personal lines chief executive Steve Hardy are planning to launch a motor insurance intermediary together, Insurance Times understands.

Devine will be the kingpin of the new firm, likely to take a senior executive position. Hardy is likely to be a non-executive director and help raise funding for the company, according to sources.

“I think it’s going to be an internet broker with a panel,” one source told Insurance Times.

The name of the firm is uncertain, but Hardy set up a company called Auto East at the end of last year, according to Companies House documents. The firm could launch at the end of this year or the beginning of 2014, according to another source.

Ageas bought panel broker Kwik-Fit Insurance Services for £215m at the end of 2010, where Devine was managing director until taking up his Ageas role in January 2011.

He left Ageas after a shake-up of the top team in February this year.

Hardy was a founding director of Swiftcover and a major shareholder when he sold the business to AXA in 2007 for an estimated £110m.

He stepped down in June last year, saying he wanted to explore new opportunities after having overseen the integration of the two insurers.