Barbara Zimmerman has joined IBA West as membership benefits vice president. She will be responsible for the research, development and management of IBA West Service Corporation programs and management of Membership Services. She began her career in insurance in 1981 with Liberty Mutual. In 1984 Zimmerman worked at Pacific Compensation as claims supervisor. In 1987 she joined Fremont Compensation Insurance Company as a claims investigator and later worked in customer service and marketing. Zimmerman most recently served as marketing manager for Southern California at Employers Insurance Group.

Linda Slaughter has been promoted from senior vice president of claims to COO at Concord, Calif.-based Athens Administrators, part of the Jenkins Athens Group. Slaughter joined Athens in its founding days and has been with the company for more than 25 years.

Heather Hornbrook has been promoted to division manager at Athens Administrators. She will be responsible for the supervision of nearly all third party administrator staff, overall quality control and various customer service related duties. Hornbrook joined Athens Administrators in 1993. She was promoted to supervisor in November 2002. She also has experience with private and public employers.

Rosemarie Townsend and Sharon Fleming have recently joined Portland, Ore.-based McFall General Agency Inc.

Townsend will serve as a commercial multi peril underwriter for McFall’s Gig Harbor, Wash. office. She will be responsible for underwriting new commercial property, casualty and commercial package risk located in Oregon and Washington. Townsend has many years of commercial underwriting experience with companies, general agencies and retail agencies.

Fleming will serve as a commercial transportation underwriter in McFall’s home office in Portland. She will be responsible for underwriting commercial trucking risk garaged in Oregon on a local, intermediate and long haul basis. She has over 25 years of experience in the industry. Fleming spent the last 15 years with a regional general agency writing commercial transportation risk.

Willis Re US in San Francisco announced that Samuel L. Dutcher has been appointed senior vice president. He will be responsible for expanding Willis Re’s Workers’ Compensation Practice, identifying new business opportunities and working closely with the practice leadership on strategic initiatives. Dutcher has 23 years of experience in reinsurance. He spent the last 12 years working in workers’ comp. He joins Willis from Benfield Inc., where he served as senior vice president, responsible for advising on national and regional workers’ comp reinsurance placements. At Benfield, he also served as an internal auditor and as a reinsurance broker. He began his career on the audit staff of Arthur Andersen & Co. in 1979.

ACE USA announced the appointment of Richard Wagner as senior vice president and branch manager for ACE Risk Management. Based in San Francisco, Wagner will have overall responsibility for overseeing branch operations for the Northwest region of the country, managing new business development and underwriting activities, and serving large account customers for ACE Risk Management. With more than 25 years of risk management and underwriting experience in the insurance arena with particular emphasis on serving the regional large-risk marketplace, Wagner joins ACE from Aon Risk Services, where he most recently served as director/relationship manager in Aon’s Risk Management Practice, located in its San Francisco office. He previously held a variety of leadership positions in the large-risk field operations arena with Royal & SunAlliance, Marsh Risk & Insurance Services, and Home Group Insurance.

Agoura Hills, Calif.-based FSC Insurance Solutions has appointed Paul Areida as president and Byron Storms as senior vice president of sales and marketing.

As FSC’s president, Areida will oversee rating and technology operations. Areida previously served as president of American Driving Records, a provider of motor vehicle report ordering software and new business submission tools. He has also served as senior vice president and national sales manager of Applied Systems Inc. He has more than 20 years of experience in the industry.

Storms will be responsible for developing cross-divisional product strategies in addition to directing the existing sales and marketing staff. Storms rejoins FSC after serving as regional vice president of marketing at Bristol West Insurance Group, a national provider of private passenger automobile insurance products.

Irvine, Calif.-based Superior Access Insurance Services Inc. hired Sharon Heller as marketing representative. Heller will be responsible for answering inquiries and providing service to SAIS subscriber agents nationally. She began her insurance career in 1998 at Allstate Insurance. During the next five years, she held the positions of office manager and senior sales representative. Heller specializes in personal lines.

Tustin, Calif.-based National Advantage Insurance Services Inc. hired Tracy L. McNicol as an underwriter. She will be responsible for both commercial and personal lines. McNicol was most recently employed as commercial package/auto underwriter at Robert Moreno Insurance Services in Fullerton. Prior to that she was with Advantage Insurance Services which was owned by Clifford Mapes (president of National Advantage) and merged with Robert Moreno in 1993. McNicol began her insurance career right out of school as a file clerk at Advantage Insurance Services in 1986 and then served as a customer service representative at Allco Insurance in Fullerton in 1989. McNichol specializes in commercial underwriting and program development for commercial general liability/property and commercial auto.

Vince Polito has been hired as a property broker at Crump E&S of California Insurance Services. He specializes in underwriting and brokerage with an emphasis on property lines. From 1993-2005, Polito served in several positions at Marsh USA in its Los Angeles office, including senior account representative, team leader, senior multi-lines broker, and senior property broker in the global broking area. Prior to that, he served as an underwriter with Hartford Insurance, ACE USA and AIG.

Burns & Wilcox appointed Nancy Ryan as a commercial underwriter for the company’s San Diego office. Ryan will be responsible for production and marketing to the company’s network of agents. Ryan joins Burns & Wilcox with previous experience as an independent contractor for London American General Agency in San Diego.

Burns & Wilcox also appointed Kay Wheeler as a broker for the company’s San Diego office. Wheeler will be responsible for production and marketing to the company’s network of agents. Wheeler joins Burns & Wilcox with previous experience as a senior marketing representative with HRH Insurance Company in San Diego.

ACE USA, the U.S.-based retail operating division of The ACE Group of Companies, named Carl Bach executive vice president of ACE Global Solutions. Based in Philadelphia, Bach will be responsible for setting and driving the overall strategic direction for ACE USA’s new Global Solutions business operations, which will concentrate on delivering ACE USA’s products and services to U.S. multi-national companies. Bach joined ACE Europe in April 2001 as senior vice president for UK & Ireland Property & Casualty Operations and assumed the position of president in July 2003. Bach is deputy chairman of the International Underwriting Association. Beginning his career as an underwriting trainee in 1974 in New York City, Bach moved to the UK in 1976 and spent the past 25 years in various underwriting and senior management positions in the London and European insurance markets.

Neville Weston joined Guy Carpenter & Co.’s Bermuda office as a senior vice president in its casualty specialty practice. He was previously with Converium Ltd. in Bermuda, where he was vice president of U.S. casualty treaty underwriting. Prior to Converium, he was with Converium Re in New York as vice president of specialty casualty treaty underwriting and was a casualty treaty underwriter with Zurich Reinsurance in London.

Patricia Kirschling joined Atlanta, Ga.-based NBIS as vice president with more than 25 years of insurance industry experience in claims, underwriting, product development, marketing and production. Prior to joining NBIS, Kirschling was affiliated with Travelers Insurance, Commercial Union Insurance, W.R. Berkley Corp.’s Firemen’s Insurance and Admiral Insurance, Reliance National and most recently, the Markel Group (Investor’s Underwriting Management Co.).

Zurich, headquartered in Zurich, Switzerland, announced that Daniel Flood has joined its North American operations as crime product manager. In this role, Flood will have oversight for the marketing and underwriting functions of the commercial crime product. Prior to joining Zurich, Flood held various underwriting and claims positions at AIG, most recently as a national accounts crime underwriter.

To submit a People & Places announcement, please e-mail cbeisiegel@insurancejournal.com.

Topics USA Agencies Workers' Compensation Underwriting Reinsurance Property London Chubb Risk Management Casualty