Willis Towers Watson has appointed Michelle Chua as associate director, Tax and Investment Structuring, after its Australasian tax liability insurance work almost tripled from a year ago.

Steven Torresan, WTW director – Mergers & Acquisitions (M&A), FINEX, says tax liability insurance “is a growing specialism worldwide and there is increased appetite among our clients to look at insuring tax risks”.

It is also a growing area in the UK, Europe and North America, giving greater certainty to parties involved in transactions by transferring the risk for a specific issue to an underwriter.

Sydney-based Ms Chua was most recently a senior manager at Ernst & Young, specialising in the transaction tax field for the past four years.

In Brisbane, Willis Towers Watson executives Luke Verhoef and Marcelle Allan have also joined the Australasian M&A team following the acquisition of M&A broking firm Risk Capital Advisors (RCA) last year.

Ms Allan joins from WTW’s Property & Casualty team, where she has most recently serviced a diverse client portfolio including retail, food & beverage and logistics.