People & Places

National

WSIA members elected Phillip McCrorie to serve as 2025-2026 WSIA Chair. McCrorie serves as CEO and chairman of RSUI. He joined the WSIA Board in 2021 and the executive committee in 2024.

Others elected for one-year terms as officers include Vice Chair Patrick Albrecht, Associated Insurance Administrators, Inc., Montgomery, Alabama; Secretary Wendy Houser, Markel Specialty, Dallas, Texas; Treasurer Coryn Thalmann, Jimcor Agencies, Montvale, New Jersey; Immediate Past Chair Brenda (Ballard) Austenfeld, RT Specialty, Naples, Florida. Members elected to three-year terms as directors include Steve Boyd, Bridge Specialty Group, San Diego, California; Gerald Dupre, Core Specialty, Atlanta, Georgia; Danny Kaufman, Burns & Wilcox, Farmington Hills, Michigan; Neil Kessler, CRC Group, Dallas, Texas; Lou Levinson, Lexington Insurance Company, New York, New York; and Danielle Wade, Jackson Sumner & Associates, Boone, North Carolina. Outgoing directors include Annie Dawson, XS Brokers, Louisville, Kentucky (2024-2025) and Dave Obenauer, CRC Group, Charlotte, North Carolina (2015-2025).

Coalition, headquartered in San Francisco, hired Maha Virudhagiri as the company’s first chief technology officer (CTO). Virudhagiri will lead engineering, IT, infosec, data, and artificial intelligence (AI) efforts. Virudhagiri spent nearly seven years at Tesla. Before Tesla, Virudhagiri held leadership roles at Ancestry and Walmart Labs.

Porch Group Inc., headquartered in Seattle, named four new members to its leadership team. Porch Group named Eric Lemieur as head of insurance sales and distribution. Previously, Lemieur held sales leadership roles at Farmers Insurance and Foremost. Chad Mirock was named senior director, insurance product and strategy. He previously held product management leadership positions at Country Financial, The Hartford, and Travelers. Andrea Ferrari was named director, underwriting. Ferrari has over 20 years of industry experience and previously led underwriting at Kin and Hippo. Emmanuel Bellegarde was named head of reinsurance. Bellegarde previously led North America Casualty Facultative reinsurance at McGill and Partners, and held reinsurance leadership roles at Aon Benfield, with additional insurance experience at Willis Towers Watson.

The Allstate Corp., based in Northbrook, Illinois, hired Andrea Carter as executive vice president and chief human resources officer, effective May 12. With nearly 30 years of experience, Carter joins Allstate from Global Payments Inc. Carter has also held human resources leadership roles at Habitat for Humanity, Ralph Lauren, Newell Rubbermaid and The Home Depot.

Tokio Marine HCC President Mike Schell will retire on March 31. Barry Cook, CEO of Tokio Marine HCC International, will additionally assume the newly created position of deputy CEO, effective April 1. Schell joined Houston-based Tokio Marine HCC in 2002 and retires after more than 50 years in the insurance industry.

Nationwide, headquartered in Columbus, Ohio, appointed Tonya Courtney to lead its new excess and surplus (E&S) brokerage property unit to open in the second half of the year. She joined Nationwide in December with more than 30 years of experience in commercial lines insurance.

Beazley, headquartered in London, England, appointed Lindsay Shipper as head of commercial property, North America. Based in Atlanta, Shipper has close to two decades of experience in the property market. She joins from Marsh, where in her 16-year career, she held several senior positions, most recently managing director and southeast zone property leader.

Markel Group named Simon Wilson as CEO of Markel Insurance, which includes Markel Specialty, Markel International and Markel Global Reinsurance. Wilson was president of Markel International. Wilson joined the group in 2010 to lead international business development. Anthony F. (Tony) Markel, currently vice chairman of the board, will retire as a company director in May and assume the honorary position of chairman emeritus of the board. Jon Michael was appointed to Markel’s board of directors.

RateFast, headquartered in Santa Rosa, California, hired Joyce Reitman as its new CEO. She has over 30 years of industry experience, recently serving as CEO of Motionloft. The company also hired Michael Bongiovanni as its chief information officer. Bongiovanni has over 30 years of industry experience, most recently serving as vice president of sales at Sage Software. Marsha Bluto is RateFast’s new executive vice president of sales. She most recently served as vice president of medical management at PPMSI.

Ryan Specialty, headquartered in Chicago, promoted Matt Havey to president of its alternative risk underwriting business, Ryan Alternative Risk. Havey joined Ryan Specialty in 2024 as senior vice president of underwriting. With this promotion, CEO Kieran Dempsey separates president from his title.

East

Satellite Agency Network Group, Inc. (SAN), headquartered in Hampton, New Hampshire, appointed Michael Sakraida as regional vice president for Massachusetts, New Hampshire and Maine. Sakraida most recently served as senior project manager for Comparion Insurance Agency.

Pro-Praxis, a Starwind Specialty Insurance Services program headquartered in New York City, appointed Joseph Washington as vice president of underwriting. With 30 years of underwriting experience, he previously served as an underwriting manager at Beazley, vice president at Berkshire Hathaway Specialty Insurance and assistant vice president at Zurich North America.

Arbella Insurance Group, headquartered in Quincy, Massachusetts, named Executive Vice President and Head of Claim Paul Brady as CEO, effective June 1. Brady has been with Arbella for nearly 15 years, serving as chief information officer and senior vice president of operations. He succeeds John Donohue, who will continue as chairman of the board and CEO of the Arbella Insurance Foundation.

NJM Insurance Group‘s President and Chief Executive Officer Mitch Livingston will retire on July 31 after 19 years at the company, including the past seven as its leader. The company’s board of directors has selected Carol Voorhees, NJM’s executive vice president and chief operating officer, to succeed Livingston. Voorhees joined NJM, based in Trenton, New Jersey, in 1996 and was named executive vice president & chief operating officer in 2024.

The Great Bay Insurance Group, headquartered in West Atlantic City, New Jersey, named Timothy J. Byrne, Jr., president of the group and Ronald R. Lovatt as president of Great Bay Insurance Company, a wholly owned affiliate of the group. Byrne Jr. previously served as the group’s chief operating officer. Lovatt, a founding member of the company, has 40 years of broad insurance industry experience. He currently serves as chief underwriting officer and chief claims officer.

Midwest

NFP, an Aon company based in New York City, hired Priya Nathan as senior vice president, sales, in its Central region. Based in Austin, Texas, Nathan has over 25 years of multinational insurance experience and was a client executive in the tech practice at Marsh, vice president, insurance technology sales, for the Midwest region of Ventiv Technology (now Riskonnect), and director, sales operations, breach response, at AllClear ID (now Experian, Inc.).

Alera Group, headquartered in Deerfield, Illinois, appointed Talicia Bashford as managing director of the Midwest region. Bashford joined Alera Group in 2024 as the Mid-Atlantic property and casualty practice leader. With over 20 years of leadership experience, she most recently served as president of AssuredPartners of Chicago.

Concert Group, headquartered in Chicago, appointed Thomas G. Sweeney as chief credit officer. Sweeney oversees all aspects of credit risk for Concert Group, including its admitted carrier, Concert Insurance Company, its non-admitted carrier, Concert Specialty Insurance Company, and its risk retention vehicle, Harmony Re. Sweeney has over 20 years of experience in finance and corporate development in the property and casualty re/insurance industry.

Southeast

Brown & Riding, headquartered in Dallas, hired Nick Calabro as senior vice president of its national casualty practice. Based in Florida, Calabro has over 13 years of industry experience, previously serving as a casualty broker at CRC Insurance Services.

West

California Insurance Commissioner Ricardo Lara reappointed members Mitch Steiger and C. Bryan Little to the California Workers’ Compensation Insurance Rating Bureau (WCIRB) Governing Committee. Lara also reappointed member Dr. Fabiola Cobarrubias to the Insurance Diversity Task Force.

EPIC Insurance Brokers & Consultants, headquartered in San Francisco, named Matt Allen principal of its private client team. With over 18 years of experience in the insurance industry, Allen has dedicated his career to providing sports professionals with specialized risk management, disability insurance and asset protection solutions. He founded The Professional Athlete Insurance Group, a boutique agency designed to manage the unique lifestyles and insurance risks of individuals in sports. Most recently, Allen served as director of sports and entertainment at Gregory & Appel.