People – Midwest

Kansas City, Mo.-based Lockton named Bob Reiff to lead Lockton Benefit Group, the broker’s global employee benefits consulting business. Reiff will succeed Mike Brewer, president of Lockton Benefit Group since 2004, who is retiring at the end of the year.

Reiff most recently served as chief operating officer of Lockton’s St. Louis operations, helping expand revenue in St. Louis by more than 50 percent during the past four years while adding teams in Memphis and Nashville.

Before joining Lockton in 2004, Reiff was senior vice president of distribution, field service, association, and product for The Hartford. He previously held sales and marketing leadership roles for 13 years at Standard Insurance Co.

Brewer led Lockton Benefit Group from a $57 million business with operations only in the U.S. in 2004 to a $302 million global enterprise in 2014.

Portage, Mich.-based managing general agency and surplus lines broker, J.M. Wilson, promoted Kurtis Gautz to branch manager of its Westerville, Ohio, office.

Gautz began with J.M. Wilson as an underwriting assistant before he was promoted to property/casualty underwriter, where he served for the past three years. During his time as P/C underwriter, Gautz received a promotion as garage specialist. He is also in the process of obtaining his Certified Insurance Counselor designation.

Insurance broker HNI has added Anna Rau as a service team support specialist in its Minneapolis, Minn., office.

In this role, Rau provides a positive customer service experience through general processing and coordination of functions to ensure service teams and client needs are met quickly and with zero errors.

The National Association of Mutual Insurance Companies (NAMIC) presented its State Legislator of the Year Award to Wisconsin state Rep. John Nygren for his support of free-market principles and strong positions to improve the insurance market in the state. The award was presented at the annual meeting of the Wisconsin Association of Mutual Insurance Companies.

Nygren is co-chair of the Joint Committee on Finance, which oversees the state budget and all state taxation and expenditure policy matters. He authored the Consumer Choice in Auto Insurance Act and led the effort to reduce the non-resident agent appointment fee, which was one of the highest in the nation. He also was key to the passage of the tort reform measures in the last two sessions of the Legislature.

Other pro-insurance-consumer bills he helped pass include legislation to crack down on storm scammers, facilitate the electronic proof of auto insurance coverage, and enable consumers to choose and companies to provide electronic delivery of insurance documents.

Voldico Insurance, based in Osgood, Ind., hired John Robinson as president. He will work out of the Indianapolis area.

Prior to Voldico, Robinson ran a successful private consulting firm focused on insurance agency mergers and acquisitions. Early in his career he worked at Ernst & Young and ING Financial. He has 20 years of experience in the property/casualty insurance industry.

Robinson holds the CIC, CPA and CGA professional designations.

Voldico operates throughout Indiana, Ohio, Kentucky, Illinois.

Peoria, Ill.-based RLI Corp. tapped Scott Ducey as vice president to lead a newly launched healthcare liability division, RLI Healthcare.

Ducey has more than 20 years of experience in the insurance and healthcare industries and most recently served as vice president of the healthcare division at Torus. He is an active member of the American Society for Healthcare Risk Management (ASHRM), American Healthcare Association (AHCA) and the Professional Liability Underwriting Society (PLUS).

RLI Healthcare will provide liability insurance coverage for targeted risks that include, but are not limited to, integrated hospital systems, long-term care facilities (single and multi-location), outpatient care facilities and clinical research providers. Policies are available on a surplus lines basis in all 50 states.

The National Association of Professional Insurance Agents (PIA National) has installed new officers, each of whom will serve one-year terms that begin Oct. 1, 2014, and run through Sept. 30, 2015.

The new officers are: President Richard A. Clements of Chalmette, La.; President-elect Robert W. Hansen Jr. of Omaha, Neb.; Vice President/Treasurer Gareth W. Blackwell Jr. of Corinth, Maine; Secretary/Assistant Treasure Timothy G. Russell, of Southport, Conn.; and Immediate Past President John G. Lee, of Fredericksburg, Va.

PIA is a national trade association that represents member insurance agents and their employees who sell and service all kinds of insurance, but specialize in coverage of automobiles, homes and businesses.