People

Great American Insurance Group, headquartered in Cincinnati, Ohio, announced that Michael G. “Mike” Liguzinski will succeed John W. Sullivan as divisional president, Specialty Human Services Division, upon Sullivan’s retirement in April 2011.

Liguzinski joined Great American’s Specialty Human Services Division in 1998. Since that time, he has had responsibility for the Specialty Human Services Chicago branch office and played a key leadership role within the Division, directing efforts such as strategic planning, the entry of Specialty Human Services into Canada, and expanding product distribution and cross marketing efforts within the Great American Insurance Group of companies.

The Specialty Human Services Division, with offices in Chicago and Cincinnati, serves over 9,000 social service organizations, non-profit agencies and for-profit businesses in most states.

Commercial insurance executive Doug Anderson has re-joined Lockton as senior vice president and producer in the insurance broker’s property and casualty operation in Kansas City, Mo. Anderson will be responsible for new business development and advocacy for commercial insurance clients at Lockton.

Anderson has been president of the Kansas City office of insurance broker IMA for the past four years. He had previously worked as a producer with Lockton for 18 years. He has advised companies in a wide array of industries on risk management and commercial insurance regionally, nationally, and globally.

Ohio-based property and casualty insurance provider, Westfield Group, has named Stuart Rosenberg as its new Group Administration leader. In this role, Rosenberg assumes responsibility for corporate oversight of information technology, human resources, marketing, general services and hospitality operations

Rosenberg has held the position of Group IT leader since 2009. In this role, he had responsibility for Westfield’s information technology function. Rosenberg joined Westfield in 2002 and has held a series of leadership positions in the information technology organization.

Prior to joining Westfield, Rosenberg was a principal with Diamond Management & Technology Consultants. Rosenberg started his career with the management consulting and technology services firm Accenture.

Columbus, Ohio-based State Auto Financial Corp. and State Automobile Mutual Insurance Co. announced the retirement of Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer Mark A. Blackburn. He is no longer serving as chief operating officer and has resigned as a director of State Automobile Mutual, and will serve in an advisory role until his November 2011 retirement.

Blackburn joined State Auto in 1999 to lead the companies’ reinsurance operation after holding executive-level positions with Grange Mutual Casualty Group and General Reinsurance Corp. He was appointed chief operating officer in 2006.

The executive leadership team has been restructured following Blackburn’s retirement.

Vice President and Chief Financial Officer Steven E. English will assume responsibility for enterprise risk management, business continuity and oversight of Risk Evaluation and Design LLC, State Auto’s affiliate in the alternative risk transfer market. In his broadened role, English will work to successfully develop strategies and integrated action plans to improve State Auto’s enterprise risk and capital management programs.

Senior Vice President and Chief Sales Officer Clyde H. Fitch will assume responsibility for middle market sales and Capital City Intermediaries, State Auto’s new managing general agency that will market products and programs of the Rockhill Insurance Group to State Auto’s independent agency plant.

Vice President of Standard Lines Joel E. Brown, previously vice president, director of Personal Insurance, assumes responsibility for all standard lines underwriting and product management. His current responsibility for personal lines and farm insurance will be broadened to include all standard commercial lines.

Chief Operating Officer of Specialty Insurance Jessica Buss, previously chief operating officer of Rockhill Insurance Group, will be responsible for completing the integration of the business operations of Rockhill Insurance Group and RTW, a monoline workers’ compensation company, into State Auto.

Vice President of Operations Lyle D. Rhodebeck will assume responsibility for Information Technology, which will continue to be led by Vice President of IT Doug Allen.

Vice President and Chief Strategy and Organization Effectiveness Officer Lorraine M. Siegworth will remain responsible for human resources, benefits and compensation, corporate communication and professional development. Siegworth will also now serve on point for State Auto’s marketing and branding strategies.

Linda S. Downs, currently serving as senior executive vice president, has been elected a regional president at Brown & Brown Inc. She is assuming responsibility for the oversight of additional retail operations in Michigan, New Jersey, New York and Ohio. She will continue to be responsible for certain of the retail operations in Delaware, Georgia, Kentucky, Illinois, Minnesota, Pennsylvania, South Carolina and Wisconsin, and for Halcyon Underwriters Inc., a wholesale brokerage division operation in Orlando, Florida.

Holborn Corp., an independent provider of reinsurance brokerage services headquartered in New York, announced that Thomas Frank and Jon Knutzen have joined the firm as senior vice presidents in the company’s Minneapolis, Minn., office. Frank will additionally serve as manager for the office.

Knutzen began his career at E.W. Blanch and moved to John B. Collins Associates. Knutzen will be working closely with Jon M. Christianson, who joined Holborn’s Analytics team as an assistant vice president in April 2010.

Frank comes to Holborn from Guy Carpenter, where he served as a managing director after its acquisition of John B. Collins Associates, a firm he joined in 1998. He will be joining another former client services colleague from the Collins/Guy Carpenter combination – Gregory Kaiser, who joined Holborn as a vice president in May 2010.

Anthony Komro has joined Beazley in Chicago as an underwriter of directors and officers (D&O) coverage.

He joins Beazley from Axis, where from 2004 he built and managed a substantial book of management liability business. His prior experience included senior roles at CNA, Gulf Insurance and Chubb.

CNA Financial Corp. expanded its Commercial Insurance management team.

Pat O’Connor joins as senior vice president of its Monoline Property unit, with oversight of the equipment breakdown operations.

John Beckman, former chief risk officer, will move into the role of chief underwriting officer, responsible for underwriting oversight and governance for all products and lines of business written within Commercial.

O’Connor joins CNA from Liberty Mutual where he served as chief underwriting officer for its large property operation. His career spans 30 years and includes roles at Liberty and Wausau in both home office and field positions. He will be located in CNA’s home office in Chicago.

Beckman rejoined CNA in 2008 as chief risk officer. He will be succeeded by Mark Verheyen.

CNA also promoted Mark Bernas to assistant vice president of its Ocean Cargo division. In this role, Bernas will manage the growth and profitability for Ocean Cargo. He replaces Charles Maurer who recently retired from CNA after more than four decades in the industry.

Bernas brings to CNA more than 15 years of ocean marine experience with a primary focus on ocean cargo. Prior to joining CNA in 2008 as underwriting manager in the Houston branch, he served as president and managing partner of Cargo Insurance Group Inc.; and served as marine manager with Roanoke Trade Services Inc.

Crump Insurance Services hired Matthew Domitrovich as assistant vice president, broker in its Chicago office. Domitrovich has more than four years’ experience placing casualty risks.

He previously was with Colemont/AmWINS where he was a broker in the casualty department. Domitrovich was responsible for brokering all lines of casualty business including Excess Transportation, Products Liability, Manufacturing, Contractors, and OL&T.

Managing general agency J.M. Wilson added Katie Lombardo as a property/casualty underwriter in its Arlington Heights, Ill., office.

Prior to joining J.M. Wilson, Lombardo worked for Aon/Aon Client Services as a production specialist and was responsible for processing P/C policies.

Topics Auto Agencies Excess Surplus Tech Ohio Underwriting Property Property Casualty Casualty Human Resources