People – East

Eastern Insurance Group, a Natick, Mass.-headquartered subsidiary of Eastern Bank, has hired William F. Gross as executive vice president of commercial lines.

Gross, who works out of the Natick office, brings more than 17 years of insurance and sales experience to Eastern Insurance.

Prior to joining Eastern, Gross was vice president of sales and marketing at Hanover Insurance Group, where he oversaw sales effectiveness and marketing for the commercial and specialty business operations. He also led various strategic initiatives for the company aimed at driving significant revenue growth opportunities across the U.S. Gross started at Hanover as the regional president for Massachusetts, and later, New England.

Pioneer Underwriters (Pioneer) has appointed Milan Devetak as senior underwriter and Andrew Nowlan as underwriter in the Miscellaneous E&O, Technology & Cyber division of its U.S. underwriting platform, Pioneer Special Risk (PSR). Devetak and Nowlan will be based in Exton, Penn., and will report directly to David Lucey, vice president of Miscellaneous E&O for PSR.

Devetak brings just under two decades of industry experience to Pioneer.

He was previously at XL Catlin as a senior underwriter for management liability, where he was responsible for managing, maintaining and servicing a profitable book of business for the east coast region.

He began his insurance career with ACE USA, where he was a products and premises liability claims adjuster.

Nowlan brings a decade of underwriting experience to Pioneer. Most recently, at United States Liability Insurance Group, he was a professional lines underwriter. In that role, he was responsible for clients in the western U.S.

York Risk Services Group (York), a Parsippany, N.J.-based provider of claims management, managed care, specialized loss adjusting, alternative risk programs, pool administration and other insurance services, has named Patrick Walsh as executive vice president and chief claims officer for York Risk Services Group.

In this role, he will lead all of York’s national claims operations in addition to leading York’s Risk Management Practices Group.

Walsh comes to this position with decades of experience leading claims organizations.

Walsh holds a BA in Organizational Communications from the University of Akron in Ohio and serves on the Advisory Board for the National Workers’ Compensation and Disability Conference. He is also Chairman of the Board of the Wisconsin Chapter of the Make-A-Wish Foundation.

The Signature B&B Companies (SBB), a New York-based regional independent insurance brokerage and an Acrisure Agency partner, has hired Julie Shumer as senior vice president.

Shumer, a 28-year veteran in the medical professional liability industry, will work in SBB’s healthcare division and focus on developing the firm’s medical professional and healthcare facility silo.

Shumer is responsible for helping to build lines of coverage for SBB’s medical liability practice to expand the division, said SBB Managing Principal Peter Schapero in a company press release. In addition, Shumer will work within the infrastructure of Acrisure to assist agency partners in the Northeast to further enhance their medical malpractice liability presence.

Prior to joining SBB, Shumer was senior vice president of the healthcare division of Professional Medical Insurance Services, specializing in medical and facility liability coverages. Prior to that, she was director of large group programs with First Physicians Insurance Company (FPIC) and was also a claims manager with FPIC’s southeast territory.

Signature B&B has offices in Garden City and Elmsford, N.Y.

JLT Specialty USA, a U.S. subsidiary of Jardine Lloyd Thompson Group plc. (JLT), has appointed Molly Nolan as senior vice president.

Nolan comes to JLT with more than 20 years’ experience in providing insurance services for complex property accounts. She has worked as both a U.S. retailer and market-facing broker in Lloyd’s of London as well as the London and European Company markets.

Based in Boston, Mass., Nolan will focus on broking and client development in her new role.

Prior to joining JLT, Nolan was the senior managing director and Northeast property practice leader at Beecher Carlson, where she was responsible for production, broking and managing all complex property accounts.

She had leadership responsibility for the JLT London North American Property Wholesale team for seven years before relocating to Boston with Beecher Carlson.

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