People and Places

The Texas Windstorm Insurance Association (TWIA) and the Texas FAIR Plan announced the election of new officers.

Craig Nadziejka

The Association Governing Committee named Craig Nadziejka as chairman of the Board, James Elbert as vice chairman, and James Langford as secretary-treasurer.

James Elbert

Nadziejka, who began his career with State Farm, is operations vice president of the Texas Zone for State Farm Insurance in Austin.

Langford is senior vice president of the Texas Farm Bureau Insurance Companies in Waco.

Elbert is president of Elbert Insurance Agency in Lake Jackson.

Harry Mahler

Harry Mahler was named Texas Mutual Insurance Company’s senior vice president of underwriting and loss prevention. Mahler will oversee the company’s corporate and regional underwriting, loss prevention and marketing efforts. He has over 25 years of experience in underwriting and loss prevention management at field and senior levels. Mahler has worked with national and multinational carriers on the East and West coasts, as well as in the Midwest.

Texas Mutual also reported that Terre Tomblin joined the company as its new supervisor for the Organized Fraud Unit. Tomblin brings over 20 years experience in fraud investigation supervision for the United States Air Force’s Office of Special Investigations (OSI). The OSI is the civilian agency that investigates major fraud against the Air Force.

Marita Zuraitis

Allmerica Financial Corporation named Marita Zuraitis as president of Allmerica’s property and casualty companies. Zuraitis will be responsible for the personal and commercial lines operations at Citizens Insurance Company of America, The Hanover Insurance Company and their affiliates. Zuraitis also will serve as a member of the company’s Operating Committee. Zuraitis comes to Allmerica from St. Paul Travelers, where she played a key role in the formation of the company through the merger of The St. Paul Companies and Travelers Property and Casualty.

Ken Riegler

Ken Riegler has been appointed senior vice president of national business development and client services for ACE Risk Management (ARM), a division of ACE USA. He will have overall responsibility for sales, marketing, broker management and product development for ARM.

ARM also appointed Keith Mattheessen as senior vice president and Houston branch manager. He will have overall responsibility for overseeing Houston branch operations, serving large account customers for ACE Risk Management. With more than 20 years experience in the insurance industry and more than 18 years in managing overall risk management accounts, Mattheessen most recently served as vice president, regional underwriting for ARM’s Southwest region. He also held several account management and senior underwriting roles for ARM’s Houston branch and Southwest region.

SAFECO named Jason Wrather to fill its position on the Board of the Texas Windstorm Insurance Association. Wrather is senior product manager for SAFECO Insurance in Seattle where he is a member of the product management team. Previously he held product management and actuarial positions with GMAC, Allstate and Progressive insurance companies. He is currently responsible for management of the SAFECO Property Products in Texas, Kentucky, Tennessee and Ohio.

Hotchkiss Insurance Agency Inc. (HIA), a provider of insurance services to building contractors and specialty industries in Texas, announced that Johnette Taylor, Greg Walsh and Candy Atkins will make-up the company’s newly formed Texas Green Industry Workers’ Compensation Group’s (TGI) Board of Directors.

Taylor is both the president of Roundtree Landscaping Inc., and a licensed landscape architect. Prior to founding Roundtree Landscaping, she served as Corporate Secretary/Treasurer and Landscape Designer for Rosedale Nurseries Inc.

Walsh has been CFO of Tree Town U.S.A. since its inception. Prior to his position with Tree Town U.S.A., one of the largest producers of container grown trees in the United States, Greg held senior financial executive positions with both public and private companies, and has provided consulting services for a broad range of businesses.

Atkins is operations manager for the Commercial Division of HIA. Atkins joined the agency in 1990; her industry designations include CIC (Certified Insurance Counselor) and CISR (Certified Insurance Service Rep). With more than 20 years experience in the insurance industry, Atkins’ expertise lies in target marketing of specific industry programs, writing guidelines for these programs and managing company relationships.

The TGI group, underwritten by Texas Mutual Insurance Company, includes growers, landscape contractors, nurseries and other green industry businesses.

The Insurance Council of Texas presented $15,000 in scholarships to students at Baylor, the University of Texas at Austin and the University of North Texas. All of the students had excelled in insurance and risk management courses.

At Baylor University, scholarships went to Jaran Bordhead, Jillian Jaynes, Seth Laroche, James Sigmon, Alexander Eichstadt, Charles Panicker, Jenny Head, Paul Morton and Blake Holman.

At the University of North Texas, scholarships went to Adrienne Woolery, Sharanda Phillips, Angela Kirby, Monica Kohandani, Brenda Gillar, Toni Hisoler and Martha Montoya.

At the University of Texas at Austin, scholarships went to Danny Droubi, Jiten Sanghai, Matthew Last and Aakash Kansagara.

All of the students maintain grade point averages of 3.0 or above and were recognized by their professors as outstanding students.

Topics USA Texas