People

United America Indemnity Ltd.’s board of directors has selected Joseph F. Morris as its president. The company will also consolidate its two U.S. insurance subsidiaries, United National Group and Penn-America Group, under a single United America Insurance Group management structure with William F. Schmidt as its president and CEO.

Morris is now president and CEO of Penn-America Group. Schmidt is now president and CEO of United National Group. Both Morris and Schmidt will report directly to the company’s board of directors through its chairman, Saul A. Fox.

Sharon Ostern has joined Atlanta-based Beecher Carlson’s Los Angeles office as senior vice president responsible for risk services consulting for new and prospective clients. She will focus on professional liability and employment practices, including sexual harassment and compliance programs for employers, general liability and workers’ compensation.

Ostern has 17 years insurance and risk management industry experience. Prior to joining Beecher Carlson, she served as vice president-risk manager at Sun Mar Healthcare. Ostern led strategic risk management planning and also managed Sun Mar’s human resources function, including staff training and development; employment practices, general liability and customer service programs for employees, residents and guests.

Prior to joining Sun Mar Healthcare, Ostern served as assistant vice president at Lockton Insurance Brokers. She began her career at Aetna Life and Casualty.

Sheryl E. Gordon of Louisville, Ky., has become the first female fraud investigator in Kentucky Office of Insurance history.

Gordon was a member of the latest class to graduate from the Department of Criminal Justice Law Enforcement Basic Training Academy. The class of 20 graduated Jan. 20, following a 16-week, 660-hour course held at Eastern Kentucky University.

Major training areas were law offenses and procedures, vehicle operations, firearms, investigation, first aid/CPR, patrol procedures and mechanics of arrest, restraint and control. While in the training course, Gordon was a squad leader and class special projects officer.

Gordon joined the KOI Insurance Fraud Investigation Division in June 2005. She previously worked for the Department of Corrections as a probation and parole officer. Prior to that, she worked at the Cabinet for Families and Children as a social worker.

Meryl Merrill has joined the Atlanta property/casualty brokerage team of Crump Insurance Services of Atlanta Inc. as a financial line broker and member of the Crump NFL team.

Merrill has nine years of professional liability underwriting experience with AIG and Fireman’s Fund. During her career with AIG, Merrill underwrote a variety of accounts from small not-profits to large Fortune 500 public companies. She will be responsible for producing and underwriting professional liability/maintenance E&O, fiduciary liability, D&O liability, EPL, health care/hospital professional and technology E&O.

Denise Tillman, wife of the late Gary Tillman, will serve as the Independent Insurance Agents of Georgia’s District One director through June 2006, according to David F. Lewis, IIAG president.

Tillman, an owner of the Tillman Insurance Agency in Rome since 1987, has been working in the agency for 10 years. Prior to her position in the agency, she worked as an internal auditor for Georgia Kraft, a paper mill in Rome. She also helped her husband, behind the scenes, with accounting for the agency.

Michael A. Reali has been promoted to sales manager of CHOICE Medical Management Services in St. Petersburg, Fla. Reali assumes the position to help drive CHOICE’s growth in Florida and the southeast region. With more than eight years experience in the sales of managed health services and insurance, Reali joined CHOICE one year ago as an account executive. He was previously a Tampa area sales manager for GENEX Services Inc.

Allyson Benda has joined Crump Financial Services as a broker in the firm’s Nashville, Tenn., office. Crump is a multi-line wholesale insurance brokerage group headquartered in Atlanta.

She has experience in brokering and consulting on executive liability insurance coverages and brings extensive knowledge in the areas of directors and officers liability, employment practices liability, fiduciary liability and crime.

Benda previously spent three years as assistant vice president and client advisor in the Financial and Professional Liability group at Marsh. Her clients included large private and middle-market public companies throughout the southeastern United States. Benda began her insurance career in 2001 as a professional liability underwriter with Royal & SunAlliance in Nashville.

Al Cadenas, formerly a State Farm agent in Nashville, who specialized in the Hispanic market, has opened his own firm, Al Cadenas Insurance Agency. The agency works with a list of insurance companies including Hanover, Safeco, Chubb, Humana, Blue Cross and Old Mutual.

Cadenas was director of sales for Blue Cross Blue Shield of Connecticut and in the 1990s managed the life and health line for the Chubb Corp. in Miami, Fla., where he was responsible for operations in Puerto Rico, Mexico, Brazil, Colombia, Chile and Argentina.

J. Timothy Georges has been named principal for Integro’s brokerage and risk management operations in Atlanta. Georges has more than three decades of insurance industry experience. He was most recently senior vice president, claims for Marsh & McLennan, and served as vice president with Johnson & Higgins.

Send your information for ‘People‘ to dkaiser@insurancejournal.com.

Topics Agencies Training Development Risk Management Professional Liability