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Risk management and insurance services provider IMA of Texas Inc. announced additions to its Health Care, Employee Benefits and Surety departments.

Michael J. Jacoby has been hired as vice president and national director of the Health Care Practice Group. He brings more than 20 years’ experience in the insurance industry on both the carrier and broker sides. Jacoby spent the last 10 years with a major broker in Dallas where he focused on health care industry accounts.

Sharon Smith is now an account executive in the Employee Benefits department. Sharon brings twelve years of employee benefits experience to IMA of Texas, mostly on the broker side.

Teresa (Tessa) Shaffer has joined the Surety Department. Shaffer will serve as the Surety Account manager, bringing more than six years’ experience in this field. She is a member of the National Association of Surety Bond Producers (NASBP).

American International Group (AIG) named Peter Eastwood as president and chief executive officer of leading surplus lines insurer Lexington Insurance Co., a unit of AIG Commercial Insurance. Eastwood assumes management responsibility for Lexington from Kevin H. Kelley, who has left the company to become CEO of specialty insurer Ironshore.

Eastwood joined AIG in 1991 serving in senior management positions within AIG Executive Liability, AIG Risk Finance, AIG Reinsurance Advisors and Lexington Insurance Co., including division vice president of Commercial Directors and Officers Liability Insurance, executive vice president and chief operating officer of AIG Risk Finance and president of AIG’s Risk Specialist Companies.

The Target Markets Program Administrators Association named Bill Kronenberg as its new president. Kronenberg succeeds Greg Thompson, chairman and CEO of Thomco Inc.

Kronenberg’s early insurance career began with Amercian International Group. He joined ECS in 1985, transforming the company from a small insurance underwriting agency into XL Environmental Inc., a leading provider of integrated environmental risk management solutions. Kronenberg also established ECS International, now known as XL Environmental Ltd, a London based subsidiary and the first exclusive environmental insurance underwriter to enter the UK.

In July 2004 Kronenberg purchased Professional Underwriters Co., a program administrator writing public entity business, and became its CEO. Recently that company was sold to the Glatfelter Insurance Group.

Gov. Mike Beebe has appointed A. Watson Bell of Searcy chairman of the Arkansas Workers’ Compensation Commission. He replaces Olan W. Reeves, who has been appointed to to serve on the Arkansas Public Service Commission.

Bell previously served as Searcy District Court Judge. A native of Searcy, Bell holds degrees from Arkansas State University and the William H. Bowen School of Law. He has been a practicing attorney in White County for more than 30 years, and has represented both workers and employers before the commission. Bell also has served as city court judge and a juvenile court judge. He sat as special justice on the Arkansas Supreme Court on three occasions.

Jay Bradford was appointed Arkansas Insurance Commissioner effective Jan.15, 2009. Bradford previously served for two years as the director of the Division of Behavioral Health Services within the Arkansas Department of Human Services.

Bradford worked in the insurance industry for more than four decades, including 30 years as founder, chairman and former stakeholder of First Arkansas Insurance Group in Pine Bluff. He is a graduate of Henderson State College and holds an honorary Doctor of Science from the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences.

Bradford also has served as a state representative for Arkansas District 18, located in Jefferson County, and as a state senator for 16 years. Bradford served as President Pro Tem his last two years in the Arkansas State Senate and is the first person in Arkansas history to serve as President Pro Tem of the state Senate, as well as Speaker Pro Tem of the state House of Representatives. He served as Chair of the Public Health, Welfare and Labor Committee in both bodies.

Dallas-based insurance brokerage Apex Global Partners (AGP) appointed Jay Beck as managing director of Business Development for its Benefits and Consulting Division and senior vice president of the corporation.

Beck has 20 years of experience in sales and operations, and financial management. Prior to joining AGP, Beck was president and CEO of Century Healthcare.

Based in Dallas, Apex Global Partners serves corporate clients in the areas of domestic and international insurance brokerage, as well as employee benefits and human resources consulting. Apex works with more than 62 partners in 55 countries through its participation in WBN Ltd, a large privately owned insurance broker network.

Paul Boudreaux Jr. was appointed as the new director of the Insurance Fraud Section at the Louisiana Department of Insurance. He replaces Trent Beach who recently took the position of director of the Property and Casualty Division.

Boudreaux is an attorney with more than 30 years of civil litigation experience, 20 of which he spent as special assistant attorney general defending the State of Louisiana in civil litigation.

Before joining the department, Boudreaux was a solo attorney practicing in general civil law, insurance defense, medical malpractice defense and public defense, with the majority of his work involving myriad issues in the insurance arena that affect insurance companies, insurance producers, policy provisions and regulatory matters.

Covington, La.-based First Premium Insurance Group Inc., a growing regional property and casualty insurance broker and certified managing general agent, has promoted Kellie Williams to commercial underwriter.

Williams first joined the staff of FPIG as an assistant underwriter in the commercial department. She has been in the insurance industry for seventeen years, and is experienced in commercial property, casualty and garage business.

Marsh has named David L. Eslick as chairman of Marsh & McLennan Agency, its new agency for small and emerging growth U.S. companies.

Eslick, who has 30 years of experience in the insurance industry, most recently was chairman, president and CEO of USI Holdings.

He will work with Jack Butcher, who is president and CEO of the new agency.

Eslick joined USI in San Francisco in 1997, serving as a senior vice president of Sales. He became president and chief operating officer in 1999, and chairman, president and CEO in 2002.

Zurich North America appointed Julie Dunai as head of its Environmental unit. Dunai brings more than 19 years of insurance industry experience to her new position.

She joined Zurich in 1997 and has worked in a variety of senior roles, including head of proposition development for Commercial Markets. Prior to entering the insurance industry, Dunai was a soil scientist working on USDA soil mapping, conservation projects and urban development.

Topics Agencies Market Pollution AIG Arkansas