People & Places

National

Scott Kreuzer has been appointed as senior managing director, Americas, at Aspen Re, effective May 4, 2020. Kreuzer joins Aspen Re from Axis Reinsurance, where he has served as senior vice president and head of Casualty North America since August 2018. He was also senior vice president and head of Casualty London from March 2018 to the present.

In his new role at Aspen Re, Kreuzer will lead the America team and work closely with leadership to develop the North America reinsurance property, casualty and specialty platform. He will report to Christian Dunleavy, chief underwriting officer for Aspen Re and CEO of Aspen Bermuda Limited, and will be based in Aspen’s New York and Rocky Hill, Conn., offices.

From October 2011 to March 2018, he was a senior vice president at Axis, with responsibility for the workers’ compensation and alternative risk treaty business unit. He has also held senior positions at Ace Tempest Re, Allied World Assurance Co. and General Reinsurance.

East

Debevoise & Plimpton LLP has announced that Eric Dinallo has returned to chair its Insurance Regulatory Practice and join its Financial Institutions and White Collar & Regulatory Defense groups.

In this role, Dinallo will focus on developing and executing regulatory strategies for clients involved in transactions in the insurance sector and counseling financial institutions, including banks and insurers, facing investigations or enforcement actions from insurance regulators, state attorneys general and prosecutors.

Dinallo previously served as executive vice president and general counsel at Guardian Life Insurance Company of America, where he led the company’s legal, regulatory, compliance and government relations functions, as well as its corporate governance activities. Prior to that, Dinallo was a partner in the Financial Institutions Group at Debevoise from 2010 until 2017. Earlier, he served as superintendent of insurance for New York state, where he was credited for helping to lead New York and the insurance industry through the financial crisis. He has also held senior executive roles at Morgan Stanley and Willis Group Holdings.

New York-based law firm Fullerton Beck LLP has opened its first New Jersey office in Red Bank. The firm also has an office in White Plains, N.Y.

New Jersey insurance coverage attorney Verne Pedro, who started with the firm on March 2, 2020, is managing the office. Pedro has more than 18 years of experience handling first- and third-party insurance coverage issues and helping clients make informed decisions about their insurance assets, policies and risk transfer strategies. Many of his first-party matters encompass losses as a result of natural disaster, fire, computer data loss, broker negligence, declaratory judgment actions, water damage, boat damage, bad faith and related business interruption, business income and extra expense claims. He also has handled bankruptcy-related insurance coverage issues and cyber breaches.

Pedro represents insurance carriers and captive insurers on insurance coverage matters involving property damage, construction defects, environmental, title insurance, personal injury, additional insureds, errors and omissions, Bermuda form policies, professional liability and others.

United Heartland, a national workers’ compensation insurance company, is continuing its focus on offering workers’ compensation insurance in Pennsylvania with the addition of Brett Roth as senior business development specialist.

United Heartland entered the Pennsylvania market in March 2019. Roth brings industry experience from underwriting guaranteed cost and loss sensitive business to forecasting and pricing model development. Most recently, he served as founder of an insurtech focused on workers’ compensation market rates and analysis to help producers grow their business.

In his new role, Roth will be responsible for business in the company’s Mid-Atlantic Region. Under the guidance of Regional Director Tracy Bain and Regional Manager David Schaschwary, the United Heartland team will continue to explore opportunities for appointing agents and identifying qualified customers within the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania.

Southeast

ONI Risk Partners, an EPIC Company, has hired Brian Wood as a commercial insurance risk advisor in Kentucky. Wood will consult with mid-to-large commercial insurance clients in the Louisville area to identify, assess and manage the overall impact and cost of risk.

Wood has experience delivering specialized services to clients in the private sector, where he worked for a national insurance company as a marketing representative. Prior to that, he served in the U.S. Navy for seven years and was awarded two Joint Service Achievement Medals for innovative problem-solving abilities and a Navy Achievement Medal for meritorious service.

Crawford & Company, a provider of claims management and outsourcing products to carriers, brokers and corporates, announced that Terry Hunt would retire from his role as U.S. President of Global Technical Services, effective May 15, 2020. At the time of the announcement, the company had yet to name a successor.

During his 27-year Crawford career, Hunt held numerous senior positions. He joined the company in 1990 as a general adjuster in Sacramento, Calif. Over the next 10 years, he was promoted to supervising general adjuster, West Coast property manager and to a global sales role. In 2000, he was appointed as vice president of the Western Region and managing director of Crawford U.S.

Twelve years later, he was named CEO of Crawford GTS U.S. He briefly departed the company before rejoining Crawford in 2017 as the U.S. president of GTS.

Former Mississippi Attorney General Jim Hood has joined Weisbrod Matteis & Copley PLLC, a litigation firm with with a focus on representing policyholders affected by natural disasters. He will serve as counsel in the firm’s Jackson, Miss., office.

Hood previously served for 16 years as attorney general in Mississippi. He led states in successful litigation against credit rating agencies following the Great Recession, and more recently initiated state action against, among others, the pharmaceutical industry and Google.

In his 16 years as attorney general of Mississippi, Hood recovered more than $3 billion from corporate defendants, including insurers denying payments to victims of Hurricane Katrina. Hood will lead WMC’s State Attorneys General practice by representing states in their efforts to hold companies liable for harm to consumers and economic damage to states. He will also build on his work pursuing insurers following Hurricane Katrina by representing public entities, businesses, homeowners and other policyholders in their efforts to recover insurance money after hurricanes, tornados, earthquakes and other disasters.

Hood will not be working at WMC on specific matters that he oversaw as attorney general.

South Central

Alan McClain has been appointed as Arkansas Insurance Commissioner, having been named to lead the Arkansas Insurance Department (AID) in early April. He previously has served as Commissioner of Arkansas Rehabilitation Services (ARS), an AID sister agency under the state Department of Commerce.

McClain has experience in the field of workers’ compensation insurance, having worked with the Workers’ Compensation Research Institute based in Cambridge, Mass. He also has served as CEO of the Arkansas Workers’ Compensation Commission. McClain has served as a claims manager for self-insured workers’ compensation policies at Sedgwick Insurance Group and on the Arkansas Workforce Development Board and the Governor’s Council on Developmental Disabilities. McClain began his career in state government in 1992 at the insurance department.

Homeowners of America Insurance Co. (HOAIC), a property and casualty insurance provider headquartered in Irving, Texas, has appointed Richard B. Runyan as its new chief financial officer (CFO), effective March 16, 2020.

Runyan joins HOAIC from Centauri Insurance Group, where he was CFO, and brings with him more than 30 years of financial management experience with half of that time spent in the insurance industry.

Prior to Centauri Insurance Group, Runyan was vice president and controller at Geovera Holdings Inc.

Midwest

Venture Underwriters Inc., a division of Allstar Financial Group, has expanded its Chicago underwriting team to include commercial underwriting veteran Chris Barrow.

Barrow joins the Chicago office as vice president specializing in commercial general liability.

Barrow started his career as a claims adjustor at Crawford & Company before moving into underwriting at Western World Insurance Group. He also held various underwriting roles with increasing management responsibilities at Crum & Forster Specialty and most recently at Vela Insurance Services, where he served as vice president and Chicago branch manager.

Barrow has experience in underwriting construction, products, hospitality and premise-based risks.

Insurance broker Hylant has promoted Matthew M. Hylant to president of its Ann Arbor, Mich., office. As president, he will be responsible for the day-to-day operations along with setting the vision for strategic growth and initiatives for the Ann Arbor office.

Prior to this role, Hylant served as client executive and team leader in Employee Benefits for Hylant’s Grand Rapids office for the past six years. Prior to joining Hylant in 2014, he worked for Epic Systems Corp., located in Madison, Wis., as a project manager for large hospital systems throughout the U.S.

Matt Hylant replaces Linda Koos, who resigned to pursue another opportunity within the industry.

West

Woodland Hills, Calif.-based Farmers Insurance has named Krista Conte head of exclusive agent distribution.

Conte joins Farmers after more than 15 years at Allstate, where she most recently was field vice president in the California region.

Farmers Insurance Group is an insurer of automobiles, homes and small businesses that provides other insurance and financial services products as well. Farmers Insurance has more than 48,000 exclusive and independent agents.

Philadelphia Insurance Cos. (PHLY) has named Yvonne Burgess as regional vice president of marketing for the company’s Rocky Mountain region.

Based in the company’s Englewood, Colo., office, she has been responsible for overseeing sales team members, achieving her own production goals and working to achieve annual goals for the region.

Burgess started her insurance career in 1993. Before joining PHLY in 2006, she held roles in claims, underwriting, and sales. In the years since, she has served as an assistant vice president and vice president in marketing across four states in PHLY’s Rocky Mountain region.

Philadelphia Insurance Cos. designs, markets, and underwrites commercial property and casualty and professional liability insurance products.

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