People

The National Association of Insurance Commissioners named its 2007 committee chairs and vice chairs. The new assignments are for one year:

International Insurance Relations Committee: chair, Diane Koken, commissioner, Pennsylvania Insurance Department, and vice chair, Dorelisse Juarbe Jiminez, commissioner, Puerto Rico Department of Insurance; and,

Information Resources Management Committee: chair: Jim Long, commissioner, North Carolina Department of Insurance, and vice chair, Steven Orr, commissioner, Maryland Insurance Administration.

Life Insurance and Annuities Committee: chair, Julie McPeak, executive director, Kentucky Office of Insurance, and vice chair, Tim Wagner, director, Nebraska Department of Insurance;

Health Insurance and Managed Care Committee: chair, Joel Ario, administrator, Oregon Insurance Division, and vice chair, Kim Holland, commissioner, Oklahoma Insurance Department; Property and Casualty Insurance Committee: chair, Kevin McCarty, commissioner, Florida Office of Insurance Regulation, and vice chair, Michael McRaith, director, Illinois Division of Insurance;

Market Regulation and Consumer Affairs Committee: chair, Mike Kreidler, commissioner, Washington State Office of the Insurance Commissioner, and vice chair, Julie Benafield Bowman, commissioner, Arkansas Insurance Department;

Financial Condition Committee: chair: Alfred Gross, commissioner, Virginia Bureau of Insurance, and vice chair, Susan Voss, commissioner, Iowa Division of Insurance;

Financial Regulation Standards and Accreditation Committee: chair, Joseph Torti III, superintendent, Rhode Island Insurance Division, and vice chair, Kent Michie, commissioner, Utah Department of Insurance.

Burns & Wilcox, a national specialty insurance wholesaler, announced the addition of Michael Bodner, who joins the company’s Parsippany, New Jersey office as a personal lines underwriter. Bodner has 10 years of experience in the insurance industry. He has specialized in high-value and coastal exposures, large inland marine, as well as personal umbrella coverages. Previously, Bodner worked for Fireman’s Fund and Harleysville Insurance.

William J. Mullaney has been named president of MetLife’s Institutional Business segment. Mullaney succeeds Leland C. Launer, Jr., who has decided to leave MetLife to pursue other opportunities. Mullaney most recently served as president of MetLife Auto & Home, the company’s $3 billion personal lines property and casualty subsidiary. Mullaney has been with MetLife for over 24 years. Institutional Business, with 2005 revenues of $19 billion, provides coverage to group customers.

William D. Moore, senior vice president, Eastern Zone, Individual Business, will succeed Mullaney as head of MetLife Auto & Home. In addition to heading up the Eastern Zone, Moore has 24 years of experience in the Auto & Home organization. Moore joined MetLife Auto & Home in 1977 and has held a variety of senior leadership positions in sales and marketing.

Five members of the professional staff at the Gilroy Kernan & Gilroy insurance agency in New Hartford, N.Y., have been promoted. Agency president Larry Gilroy announced the promotions as follows:

Donald Polczynski to chief financial officer; Gail Manfredo to sales manager; Noelle Richer to manager of employee benefits and financial services; Timothy Street to vice president of employee benefits; and Michael Giacobbe to vice president of commercial lines and risk management.

Bruce Anderson has joined wholesale broker S. H. Smith & Co. Inc., based in West Hartford, Conn., as chief marketing officer. Anderson will develop a national sales initiative, expanding the firm in underserved geographic areas and maintaining relations with the firm’s largest broker clients. Anderson comes to S.H. Smith from Hartford Financial Services Group, where he was an assistant vice president in the National Client Practices group.

OneBeacon Insurance Group Ltd., out of Boston, Mass., has named Philip Sibilia as senior vice president of claims of its insurance operations. He succeeds Gary Black who retired. Sibilia has been with the company since 1979. Most recently, he served as technical claims officer.

Marsh Inc. has appointed David Bagnall as new sales and business development leader in the London office of its Financial and Professional Services Practice (FINPRO), the broker’s professional services division. He will be responsible for growing the business at a UK and international level. Bagnall joins Marsh from the law firm of Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer where he focused on the investment and commercial banking sectors.

Willis Group Holdings Ltd. announced that after a 40 year career in the insurance broking business, 21 of which have been with Willis, Richard Bucknall, vice chairman of the Group and chairman and CEO of Willis Limited, the company’s UK business unit, is retiring. He will do so effective March 31, 2007, and will continue in an advisory role through the end of the year. Bucknall’s career with Willis began in 1986 and over the course of his tenure, he has served the company in several capacities.

David Margrett, maintaining his role as chief executive officer of Willis’ Global Specialities unit consisting of such areas as aerospace, construction, energy and marine, will assume the roles of chairman and CEO of Willis Limited effective March 31, 2007.

The Bermuda-based White Mountains Insurance Group has elected Ray Barrette as chairman and chief executive officer. He succeeds Jack Byrne, who has retired from the company, as chairman, and Steve Fass as CEO. Barrette is coming back to his former position as CEO, following his retirement as an officer and director in October 2005. He returned as a director of the company in August 2006. Barrette originally joined the company in 1973.

White Mountains is the parent company of the OneBeacon Insurance Group, Esurance, White Mountains Re, Folksamerica Re and Sirius International.

Topics Legislation