The north-east of England may not be the obvious place to find one of Bermuda's best insurance brokerage talents.

But that is exactly where Paul Scope, president of the newly-formed JLT Park, one of the Island's strongest insurance broker groups, hails from.

Mr. Scope's company, Park (Bermuda) Ltd., joined forces with Jardine Lloyd Thompson (JLT) in a deal worth up to $11.8 million last month.

The new business, which has been renamed JLT Park, will employ about 40 staff and expects to place more than $400m of premium in the Bermuda insurance market each year.

Mr. Scope started out in the industry about 33 years ago with his first job being in Newcastle.

He went on to work for a number of insurance companies in the UK for 10 years, including the likes of Norwich Union and Eagle Star, moving from underwriting into sales.

A move to Bermuda beckoned in 1983 and he has never looked back since.

"It was just the right time in my career to come to Bermuda," he said. "I had moved three times with Eagle Star and I was offered another move and at the time I just wanted some international experience.

"The intention was to come for three years to work in local insurance, but then the Ace and XL formation started and I just rode the wave ever since. I realised in 1989 that this was going to be a sustainable market and one that meant I was not going to be missing out on a career by staying in Bermuda.

"I started off getting clients from US independent brokers and introducing them to the likes of ACE and XL and that is what I am still doing now."

Mr. Scope headed up Harnett & Richardson Ltd. and worked for Freisenbruch-Meyer Management Services Ltd., based in Front Street, in offering local insurance to banks, hotels and home owners.

"I was here when Ace and XL got set up in 1986 and it was a good time to be here because Eagle Star, who I worked for in England, were the largest liability insurer and the two biggest companies here were working in, what is known as casualty insurance in the US, but it is basically liability insurance," he said.

He did insurance brokerage work for some of the Island's biggest financial institutions such as the Bank of Bermuda, Butterfield Bank and the Bermuda Monetary Authority.

"I worked in liability insurance and directors and officers liability insurance and even today they are two of the strongest areas that the Park Group has," he said. "I did some Ace and XL business and as the market expanded I had the opportunity to set up Park International in 1989."

Park International was then bought by Mutual Risk Management Ltd. (MRM) in 1992 before merging with H&H and becoming Park International five years later.

They became Park (Bermuda) Ltd. as part of the Park Group soon after before MRM were taken over by creditors including the likes of XL and Park was bought out by SunTX Capital Partners in 2003.

Mr. Scope is now looking forward to the start a new era with Park (Bermuda) Ltd. working alongside JLT under the JLT Park banner.

"The two companies had been in competition for a number of years now, but it was always a very respectful competition," he said. "They have been our biggest competitor since we set up in 1989 and the Triangle Brokerage Ltd., which is now owned by JLT, was set up in 1988.

"Everything was always done in a very mutual respect basis and so we have always been on good terms with our competitors, which is good and it has made the recent negotiations easy.

"We ended up having some good skills in areas like professional liability and they had skills in property and that is why the deal makes such good sense because we can combine the skills we have together to deliver the best services to our clients.

"It makes us one of the strongest broker groups and the largest broker that will serve independent brokers on the Island."

Mr. Scope moves into JLT Park's offices in Cedar Avenue early next month and is relishing the prospect of the new business partnership. "We are all very excited - we just had our first dinner together with all the senior people and there is a lot of mutual excitement about getting together and to serve the best interests of all of the Bermuda based insurers and reinsurers and we are already planning production trips," he said.

JLT Risk Solutions (Bermuda) Ltd. will acquire Park's issued share capital from the Park Group for a maximum cash consideration of $11.8m, $8.85m of which is an initial payment with the balance based on future performance.

JLT, which operates in 30 countries and employs more than 5,000 staff worldwide, is a risk management adviser and insurance and reinsurance broker, as well as being a major provider of employee benefits and administration services and related consultancy advice.

Mr. Scope, who is also known as 'Scopes' in the Island's footballing circles, where he has been coaching the Bermuda Hogges for the past four years and even had a stint with the national side, is hoping that JLT Park will also prove to be a winning combination.