People – East

Global reinsurance and insurance broker Willis Group Holdings appointed Christine LaSala to be chair of Willis North America.

LaSala will work with Todd Jones, CEO of Willis North America, on business development and expanding Willis’s footprint in the marketplace.

LaSala assumes the role previously held by Vic Krauze, who stepped down from Willis at the end of February. LaSala joined Willis in July 2014 and since October 2014 has been serving as Willis’s global head of Client Advocacy, a role she will retain along with her chair position. Previously, she served as president of the WTC Captive Insurance. Prior to that, she spent 25 years with Johnson & Higgins and its successor company Marsh. She is based in New York.

The Hartford Financial Services Group has named Ray Sprague executive vice president, Personal Lines. Sprague will report to Doug Elliot, president of The Hartford. He is based in the company’s Hartford, Connecticut, headquarters.

Most recently, Sprague was acting leader of Personal Lines and head of Strategy and Business Development for The Hartford. In that role, he was responsible for the company’s enterprise strategy to drive profitable growth, working closely with the businesses to identify new product and distribution opportunities and other growth initiatives. The Hartford said the company intends to fill Sprague’s strategy role in the near future.

Sprague joined The Hartford in 1985 and has held leadership positions of increasing responsibility including oversight for the company’s Small Commercial business. He is a Chartered Property Casualty Underwriter.

Selective Insurance Group Inc. in Branchville, New Jersey, hired Douglas T. Eden as executive vice president, head of Commercial Lines. Eden will assume responsibility for all aspects of standard commercial lines operations, including all regional management.

Eden has spent 20 years in the industry and has experience in field operations, mergers and acquisitions, state expansion and growing small business lines. He previously worked at Main Street America Group, where he spent the past eight years as senior vice president, Field Operations.

Liberty Mutual Insurance has appointed Dr. Will Gaines, MD, MPH, as national medical director of its Commercial Insurance strategic business unit.

Gaines is responsible for managing the company’s team of regional medical directors, as well as the strategies and tools that help Liberty Mutual – and Helmsman Management Services, its wholly-owned third party administrator – manage workers’ compensation claims.

Gaines has been with the company for nearly 12 years, including serving as associate national medical director for the last two years. During his career at Liberty Mutual, he has played a key role in developing various medical strategies and claims tools the company now employs in the areas of data analytics, predictive models, outcome-based networks and prescription management.

Alliant Insurance Services, a specialty insurance brokerage based in Newport Beach, California, hired Chris DeBruin as vice president and director of claims for the Alliant Construction Services Group. He is based in Alliant’s Boston office.

DeBruin will oversee the claims services platform for large contractor clients across the U.S. and serve as an advocate for clients with complex claims. Prior to joining Alliant, he served as vice president, corporate associate general counsel for Suffolk Construction Company.

Insurance brokerage and risk management firm Integro has hired Mark Santoleri as health care senior vice president in the Philadelphia office.

Santoleri joins from Brooklyn, New York-based Platinum HR Management, where he served as corporate director of risk control, providing risk management services to clients operating 125 nursing homes.

Earlier, Santoleri served as vice president, safety and loss control, at Sunrise Senior Living of McLean, Virginia, and rose to corporate senior director at Genesis Healthcare Corp. of Kennett Square, Pennsylvania. Santoleri is a Certified Health Care Safety Professional (CHSP).

Allied Insurance Brokers hired Richard McElhaney as assistant vice president of Safety & Risk Management, and Bill Ferguson as producer for the Eastern U.S. region. Both are based out of Allied’s Pittsburgh headquarters.

McElhaney will lead Allied’s newly formed Safety & Risk Management department. His safety management experience dates back to 1992 as a site safety manager on large scale construction projects. He served as safety and risk management director for companies such as Taggart Global, Chester Engineers and Fenner Dunlop Americas.

Ferguson is charged with growing and developing Allied’s east coast, mid-sized accounts within the crane, concrete pumping and equipment rental industries. Ferguson has over 15 years of experience in the commercial insurance industry with companies such as Liberty Mutual and Henderson Brothers.

Topics Alliant