RenaissanceRe Holdings is moving to fill the rather large gap created by the sudden departure of James Stanard, its President and CEO (See IJ Website Nov. 1). The company announced that Kevin J. O’Donnell has been promoted to President of its Renaissance Reinsurance Ltd. subsidiary. Ian Branagan, currently Managing Director of RenaissanceRe of Europe in Dublin, will be relocating to Bermuda in January 2006 to become head of Group Risk Modeling.
O’Donnell, 38, “will add to his current responsibilities for the Company’s Catastrophe Reinsurance lines the oversight of the Company’s Specialty lines of business,” said the bulletin. He will maintain his current position as Sr. VP of the parent company, and will report to CEO Neill A. Currie. “Renaissance Reinsurance Ltd. accounts for over half of the Company’s gross written premium,” the announcement noted.
Branagan, 37, has led the Company’s Dublin-based European operations since joining the firm in 1998. In his expanded role he will report to William I. Riker, who has overall responsibility for enterprise-wide modeling and underwriting. The Dublin office will be managed by Ian Britchfield who has served as its financial controller.
“We are pleased to welcome both Kevin and Ian to their new roles,” Currie stated. “Kevin is a talented executive and underwriter who has played a key role in building and maintaining the global leadership position we enjoy in catastrophe reinsurance. He has earned the respect of his colleagues and the market, and we believe his expertise will augment that which already exists in the Specialty operation as we continue to focus on expanding that book of business and maintaining our global leadership in catastrophe reinsurance.
“We also look forward to bringing Ian’s expertise to a role that will have impact across all our business, and will support our efforts to assure that our modeling remains the industry standard bearer and keeps pace with the changing nature of the risks and opportunities throughout our world. Ian will also continue be active in marketing and underwriting as a member of the reinsurance underwriting team. In his new position, Ian will work closely with Bill Riker, who, we are pleased to report, has recovered his health and is back full-time overseeing underwriting activities across all of our businesses.”
O’Donnell joined the RenRe in 1996, and is responsible for leading the Property Catastrophe Underwriting and Ceded Reinsurance business for the Renaissance group of companies. He has over 15 years of insurance and reinsurance experience, including alternative markets, catastrophe underwriting and insurance derivatives and securitization. Prior to joining RenRe O’Donnell was a Vice President of Centre Financial Products, Ltd.
Branagan joined the RenRe in 1998, to head up Renaissance of Europe in Dublin. In addition to reinsurance underwriting and marketing, primarily in Europe, he leads the internal Property Risk Modeling team for RenaissanceRe. He has 14 years of insurance and reinsurance experience covering probabilistic risk modeling and catastrophe underwriting, among other things. Prior to joining RenaissanceRe, Mr. Branagan was head of European operations for Applied Insurance Research Inc. He holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Economics and European studies from Manchester Polytechnic.
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