People

Barbara Zito has been named senior vice president of Marketing at Founders Insurance Co. in Des Plaines, Ill. Founders is a member company of the Utica National Insurance Group of New Hartford, N.Y.

Zito is responsible for the business development and brand building of the company’s insurance products and services, which include non-standard personal automobile coverages, liquor liability and general liability coverages, and other commercial coverages.

She brings to the position more than two decades of national and international experience in the insurance, banking and financial services industries, specializing in strategic planning and execution, organization building, new business development, competitive branding and product positioning.

Kansas City, Mo.-based independent insurance broker Lockton Companies LLC has expanded its construction and design team, adding Karen Erger and Tom Miller.

Erger joins Lockton’s Design and Construction Unit as vice president, director of Practice Management. She provides professional liability practice management, loss prevention, contract and complex claims management consulting services to Lockton’s architectural, engineering and construction clients.

Erger’s background includes construction litigation at a leading construction law firm, professional liability claims defense and claims consulting for major professional liability underwriters. She also has experience in professional liability insurance brokerage and professional liability practice management consulting.

Erger publishes frequently on professional liability and practice management topics, and is a regular speaker at construction industry and design professional meetings and programs. She is licensed to practice law in Illinois and Iowa.

Miller joins Lockton as a senior vice president within the Design and Construction Unit. His role will be dedicated to serving the needs of engineering, architecture and construction firms performing services around the globe.

Miller has spent more than 15 years concentrating on professional liability for design professionals and contractors in multiple roles. He previously managed the professional liability underwriting of one of the largest construction insurers and has developed numerous manuscript insurance products as well as focused on strategic planning to enhance business unit opportunities.

Miller has also been published regarding construction law and claims. He brings to Lockton a wealth of knowledge that draws upon his claims and underwriting background with one of the largest construction insurers as well as his legal expertise.

Combined Insurance based in Glenview, Ill., added Chris Martin as president of the company’s Worksite Solutions division, a full-service voluntary benefits carrier.

Martin joins Worksite Solutions with nearly 20 years of experience in management and development of worksite-style businesses including 17 years with Trustmark, a life and health insurer and employee benefits provider, where he helped build and subsequently led the company’s voluntary business unit through an eight-year period of significant growth.

Combined Insurance’s Worksite Solutions division is a full-service voluntary benefits carrier with comprehensive administrative sales support services, enrollment capabilities and employee benefits communication tools.

Michigan-based workers’ compensation firm Accident Fund Holdings Inc. has appointed Frank Freund as chief financial officer. Freund is replacing Ron Schoen, who served as chief financial officer for the company for the past 23 years.

As chief financial officer, Freund is responsible for providing strategic direction and management oversight to all corporate and regulatory finance functions, including accounting, financial reporting, budgeting and planning, and plays a significant role in risk management.

Freund most recently served as executive vice president, chief financial officer and treasurer for American Physicians Capital Inc., a publicly traded medical professional liability company. Prior to that, he worked in public accounting for Deloitte & Touche; Andrews, Hooper, Pavlik; and Ernst & Young serving clients in the insurance and health care sectors.

Élise Spriggs, a 20-year veteran of Ohio’s legislative and legal communities, has joined Columbus, Ohio-based State Auto Insurance Companies as director of Government Relations.

Since January 2011, Spriggs had served as director of government affairs in Ohio Governor John Kasich’s Office of Health Transformation where she established and managed legislative teams across six cabinet agencies related to health and human services. She also served as lead negotiator on the administration’s more than $36 billion biannual Medicaid budget.

Spriggs previously served as director of legislative affairs in the administration of former Ohio Gov. Bob Taft and as director of the Columbus law firm Kegler, Brown, Hill & Ritter.

Following her graduation from Wittenberg University and Capital University Law School, Spriggs held legislative affairs positions with the Ohio Academy of Nursing Homes, Ohio Home Builders Association and the Ohio Petroleum Council.

Holborn Corp., an independent provider of reinsurance brokerage services, announced that James Brost and Jeffrey Hawn have joined the firm as senior vice president and vice president, respectively, in the firm’s Minneapolis, Minn., office. Both are Minnesota natives with expertise in the agricultural sector of the business.

Brost arrives at Holborn from BMS Intermediaries, where he has served as executive vice president since 2007. He began his career at EW Blanch in Minneapolis in 1975, and was one of the original founding members of Collins Associates in 1987. He is recognized as an agricultural business expert, and as such, provided testimony before the Agriculture Committee of the U.S. House of Representatives.

Hawn comes to Holborn from BMS Intermediaries. He began his career in 1990 at EW Blanch, where he built his knowledge of the regional property/casualty business. He joined Collins in 1996, where he acquired an expertise in agricultural business.

Missouri Gov. Jay Nixon appointed Labor and Industrial Relations Commissioner John J. Hickey to serve as director of the Division of Workers’ Compensation at the Missouri Department of Labor. He will fill the position that Brian May held as acting director.

Prior to this appointment, Hickey served as the employee representative commissioner on the Labor and Industrial Relations Commission (LIRC) for nine years, where he heard and determined objections to prevailing wage determinations, reviewed appeals from workers’ compensation cases, unemployment insurance cases, crime victims’ compensation cases, and tort victims’ compensation cases.

Hickey also represented the 80th District in the Missouri House of Representatives from 1993 to 2002. He is a journeyman pipefitter with Plumbers and Pipefitters Local 562.

Hickey began his new post on June 6. Curtis Chick has been appointed to serve as the employee representative commissioner on the LIRC.

Cincinnati, Ohio-based employee benefits and financial services firm Horan has added Kurt Krebs as vice president and chief financial officer. He will direct all fiscal management aspects of the company.

Prior to joining Horan, Krebs worked as Line of Business CFO at Fifth Third Bank, Audit Manager at Ernst & Young, and as a financial analyst at Kraft Foods.

He earned his Bachelor of Business Administration degree in Accountancy from The University of Notre Dame and is a designated Certified Public Accountant.

Topics Workers' Compensation Ohio Agribusiness Construction Missouri Employee Benefits Professional Liability