People & Places

National

Zurich North America, headquartered in Schaumburg, Illinois, named Kara Higginbotham head of professional liability and cyber for U.S. national accounts, leading a team of underwriters who serve Zurich’s largest U.S. corporate and middle market companies. Higginbotham joined Zurich as head of corporate accounts for the professional liability and cyber team in 2018.

WTW, headquartered in London, appointed Danielle Lombardo chair of the real estate, hospitality, and leisure (REHL) division, corporate risk and broking (CRB) North America. Lombardo has more than 15 years of experience in the insurance industry, focused on real estate.

WTW also appointed Alex DeLaricheliere as strategy and execution leader and banking subvertical leader within the financial institutions and professional services (FIPS) industry division of corporate risk and broking, North America. DeLaricheliere has over 20 years of industry experience, most recently serving as managing director at Marsh.

Risk Strategies, based in Boston, appointed Marshall Heron national real estate practice leader. Heron has over 25 years of insurance brokerage experience, most recently serving as president at Insurance Group of America LLC.

Everest Insurance, the insurance division of Everest Group Ltd., headquartered in Hamilton, Bermuda, appointed four U.S. regional executives as part of realigning its retail business into four regions.

Craig Hanrahan, regional executive, U.S. northeastern region, joins Everest from Chubb.

Marissa Jennings, regional executive, U.S. southern region, joins the company from Zurich Insurance Group.

Marcus Cooper, regional executive, U.S. central region, was previously head of distribution for Everest Insurance North America.

Michael Cellura, regional executive, U.S. western region, was previously head of international facultative reinsurance for Everest.

East

USQRisk, headquartered in New York City, hired Ashleigh Sears as head of casualty. Sears previously served as northeast division leader, Hartford Excess Solutions, The Hartford Insurance Co.

Timothy Folk joined Alliant Insurance Services, headquartered in Irvine, California, as executive vice president, Alliant Specialty, in the firm’s agribusiness industry vertical. Folk will lead and grow Alliant’s presence in the Philadelphia market.

JM Wilson, headquartered in Portage, Michigan, hired Corey Kemp as transportation renewal underwriter, covering Ohio, Kentucky, Pennsylvania, Virginia, West Virginia and the eastern U.S. He has over eight years of experience in auto underwriting.

Vermont Mutual Insurance Group, based in Montpelier, Vermont, promoted Brody N. Gilbert to senior vice president of finance and operations, and treasurer. Gilbert joined Vermont Mutual in 2017 as controller and was promoted to VP and CFO in 2021.

Midwest

The Liberty Company Insurance Brokers, headquartered in Gainesville, Florida, named Andrew Bernau senior vice president, commercial lines producer. He is based in Chicago. Bernau most recently served as vice president, property/casualty, at Presidio (Acrisure Agency Partner).

Powers Insurance and Risk Management, basedin St. Louis, hired Mike Blankenship as commercial lines account manager. He has nearly 10 years of insurance experience, most recently as an account manager at USI Insurance Services.

Scott Reinke joined Intact Insurance Specialty Solutions, headquartered in Plymouth, Minnesota, as chief underwriting officer for its transactional surety team. Before joining Intact, he was senior vice president of transactional surety at Arch Insurance Group.

Leif Assurance, headquartered in St. Louis, hired Kristine Sills as a commercial lines account executive. Sills most recently served as an account executive at POWERS Insurance and Risk Management.

Leif also promoted Melinda Langworthy to the role of enterprise relationship manager. She previously was a senior sales account executive. Langworthy holds the Professional Worker’s Compensation Advisor (PWCA) and Small Business Coverage Specialist (SBCS) designations.

South Central

XPT Specialty, headquartered in New Haven, Connecticut, hired Jody Travis as vice president and senior underwriter in its Houston office. Travis has over 30 years of experience in the commercial sector.

Higginbotham made several promotions within the financial services division. Long-time executive team member Michael Parks has been elevated to the role of president, financial services. Koby Hackradt takes over Parks’ previous leadership duties as chief operations officer (COO), employee benefits, and Carter English joins Hackradt in overseeing employee benefits in a new chief business officer role.

Parks will focus on executive strategy in a role that oversees many departments — including employee benefits.

Promoted from managing partner to COO, employee benefits, Hackradt has been with Higginbotham for over 14 years.

English was promoted from managing partner to chief business officer, employee benefits after eight years with Higginbotham.

Alliant Insurance Services, headquartered in Irvine, California, named Michael R. Smith as executive vice president, Alliant Specialty, in the financial institutions industry vertical. Smith is based in Dallas.

Alliant also hired John R. “Johnny” Braniff Jr. as an executive vice president within its Alliant Americas division. He is based in Houston.

Southeast

The Liberty Co., based in Gainesville, Florida, named two insurance industry veterans to executive positions.

Bill Allen, who was previously executive vice president at Hays Companies, will be president of middle markets property/casualty at Liberty.

Tom Hayes, formerly national sales leader for employee benefits at the McGriff brokerage, will be executive vice president of national sales and growth for employee benefits. Hayes has more than 30 years in the insurance industry, including time at Rebsamen Insurance, in Arkansas.

West

Woodruff Sawyer promoted Dave Erickson to employee benefits practice leader. Most recently, he led Woodruff Sawyer’s employee benefits operations. Before joining Woodruff Sawyer in 2018, he was director of technical finance at Burnham and an analyst at Alliant.

The Surplus Line Association of California (SLA), headquartered in San Ramon, California, elected Rich Gobler of Burns and Wilcox as chair of the SLA board of directors.

Also elected were John Washington, Arch Insurance Group, as vice chair and Sarah Nichols, Crum and Forster, as secretary/treasurer. Outgoing chair Janet Beaver, Aurenity, remains on the board as past chair. Kristopher Bauer of Jencap Specialty and Jon Larson of ACE Westchester joined the 13-member board.

James Lawrence joined Alliant Insurance Services as executive vice president, Alliant Specialty, construction services group. He is based in Los Angeles.

Alliant also hired Angie Brown as first vice president and consultant for the employee benefits group in Alliant’s absence, disability and life insurance practice. She most recently was sales director and absence practice leader at Majesco.

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