People – Southeast

Marsh has appointed Julie Wood as Southeast Partnership leader based in Atlanta. In this role, Wood is responsible for ensuring the delivery of Marsh’s advisory and transactional services to clients throughout its Southeast Partnership, which includes Marsh’s Atlanta, Birmingham, Ala., Charlotte, N.C., Greenville, S.C., Memphis and Nashville Tenn., and Sunrise and Tampa, Fla. offices.

Wood brings to her role 17 years of industry experience, most recently serving as Marsh’s Southeast Casualty placement leader. Prior to joining Marsh, Wood spent 16 years with Zurich Insurance where she worked across a range of underwriting, business development, account management, and profit center leadership roles.

Wood will report to Regina Spratt, Marsh’s Southeast Zone leader. Wood succeeds Lee Stevenson, who has been named Marsh’s Central Zone leader based in Chicago.

Berkley Corp. reported that Steven S. Zeitman has been named president of its excess and surplus lines carrier Admiral Insurance, succeeding James S. Carey. The appointment is effective immediately.

Carey passed away in April.

Zeitman has nearly 45 years of experience in the property/casualty insurance industry and most recently served as Admiral Insurance’s chief operating officer. He joined W. R. Berkley Corp. in 2004 as the founding president of Berkley Specialty Underwriting Managers (BSUM).

Crawford & Company, a provider of claims management services, has named Ken Fraser, a senior claims and risk management executive, as its executive vice president of strategy and performance development. In this role, Fraser will partner with business segment leaders and corporate executives on strategic, long-term financial plans for Crawford.

He will lead a team of professionals around the world in managing the company’s corporate financial planning and analysis and its Manila-based Global Business Services Center from the company’s Atlanta headquarters.

He also will develop analyses of the competitive landscape, manage enterprise risk management for the company and evaluate merger & acquisition opportunities.

Fraser reports to President and Chief Executive Officer Jeffrey T. Bowman and becomes a member of Crawford’s Global Executive Management team.

Most recently, Fraser was executive vice president for Wells Fargo Insurance, where he was responsible for the company’s Risk Management, Benefits and International Practices as well as its BridgeStreet Consulting Group and the Wells Fargo Global Broker Network. Prior to that role, for approximately 25 years he was with several Marsh & McLennan companies in the USA and UK.

CNA Financial Corp. has appointed Kevin Leidwinger as president and chief operating officer of CNA Commercial, reporting to Tom Motamed, chairman and chief executive officer, CNA.

In this role, Leidwinger will lead the CNA Commercial team in executing CNA’s underwriting and profitable growth strategies.

Leidwinger joins CNA from The Chubb Group, where he most recently served as global casualty manager, overseeing a $3.3 billion worldwide portfolio of general liability, workers’ compensation, excess umbrella, auto, errors and omissions and environmental business. Prior to this role at Chubb, he served in a number of senior positions, including Global Liability product line manager and U.S. field operations manager.

Leslie Rippley, who has 25 years’ experience, nearly all of it with major carriers, is the new vice president of commercial lines for the American Association of Insurance Services (AAIS), the national property/casualty advisory organization.

Rippley is joining AAIS from Fireman’s Fund Insurance Co., where she had been commercial lines vice president and western zone leader based in the company’s Chicago office since July 2012. In that capacity, she had been responsible for field underwriting operations for small business, middle market, admitted excess, and highly-protected risks in the largest grossing revenue zone in the company.

Previously, she held positions at The Hanover, General Casualty, Crum & Forster, The Hartford, Liberty Mutual/Wausau and Travelers.

Aspen U.S. Insurance announced that Russell Brown has joined the company as senior vice president and head of U.S. distribution.

Reporting to Bob Rheel, executive vice president and head of U.S. Property & Casualty Insurance, Brown will lead distribution and sales across Aspen U.S. Insurance, working to expand relationships with brokers through regional management, cross-selling and national relationships.

Brown joins Aspen U.S. Insurance with more than 20 years of experience. Most recently, he was senior vice president and national relationship manager for QBE North America, where he was responsible for managing the corporate relationships and business development initiatives with several of QBE’s key broker partners. .

Topics USA