Norton Rose has hired Dibb Lupton Alsop's ex-head of reinsurance as part of its strategy to set up a premier insurance practice.

Arbitration and litigation specialist Susan Dingwall, who joined Norton Rose this week, has been charged with expanding new and existing business at the firm, which has also hired Clifford Chance senior assistant Cheryl Ronaldson, who joins as a partner.

They are the ninth and tenth partners to join Norton Rose's insurance department, spread across its London and Paris offices.

Norton Rose has a long-term strategy to compete head-on for insurance work with the top insurance firms such as Ince & Co and Barlow Lyde & Gilbert.

The firm's acknowledged insurance star is David Mackie. However, a partner at a rival insurance firm said Norton Rose was yet to build a cohesive team of insurance specialists around him.

Dingwall, said a "significant" amount of client work had followed her from Dibbs, whose insurance practice is losing a second partner, Alan Fisher, later this month to Elborne Mitchell.