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The Independent Insurance Agents and Brokers of New Jersey (IIABNJ) has elected new leadership. Terry M. Ryan of Hanson & Ryan in Totowa will serve as the new chairman of the association. Ronald Gansfuss of Gansfuss Agency in Clinton will serve as chairman-elect. Louis Sofianakos, of AAA NJ Insurance Agency in Florham Park, will assume the position of vice chairman and Charles S. Stults III of Allen and Stults in Hightstown will continue his role as national director. Jacqueline Frank, of Tri-County Agency of Brick, will serve as immediate past chairman. Glenn Watkins of Cumberland Insurance Group was recently presented with the prestigious 2009 Howard Kucher IIABNJ Volunteer of the Year Award. Watkins was recognized for his outstanding work and leadership on the IIABNJ Make-A-Wish Committee for which he has given over seven years of service, first as a committee member and now as co-chairman. The association also honored L. Scott Stanford of Britton Selg Stanford Agency in Roselle Park, who was presented with the American Association of Managing General Agents (AAMGA) Achievement Award. The award recognizes an individual or group that has dedicated their time and effort to independent agents throughout the state.

AXA Art Insurance, which is headquartered in New York City and operates internationally, has appointed Colin Quinn as director of claims management. In this capacity, he will be responsible for overseeing day to day management of the company’s claims division and its team of adjusters. Quinn brings more than 10 years of claims service delivery experience to the position. AXA Art’s team of international Fine Art Experts remains fundamental to its integrated claims processing procedures and will continue to apply art and insurance know-how to the claims service delivery function.

The Professional Insurance Wholesalers Association of New York State Inc. (PIWA) has elected Lucas Snyder of the NIF Group as its president. Snyder is the organization’s first second-generation president – he is the son of Past Pesident Abe Snyder. Other officers for the trade group are: Vice President Jo Ann Peri of Cowles & Connell; Treasurer David W. Pietrowski of LoVullo Associates Inc.; Secretary Barry Walfish of Jimcor Agencies Inc.; and Immediate Past President Gary Ricker of Pacific Pro Intermediaries. Peri, Pietrowski and Walfish were also elected to the group’s board, along with Michael A. DeFeo of NIF Group Inc.

Unisource Program Administrators (UPA), a workers’ compensation wholesaler, has expanded services to all 50 states and has named Barbara Drollinger as vice president of strategic relations. Drollinger, 20-year veteran of the workers’ compensation industry, previously served as vice president of insurance operations for CompSource Oklahom, where she launched the company’s agent program.

Vince McCarthy has joined Verisk Analytics as senior vice president of corporate development and strategy. McCarthy has broad range of corporate finance and mergers and acquisitions experience globally. He is responsible for identifying and evaluating new strategic opportunities that align with Verisk business operations and growth initiatives. In partnership with other senior business leaders, he will lead the design, planning and execution of the overall business strategy at Verisk and will be responsible for leading mergers and acquisitions strategy across its businesses. Before joining Verisk, McCarthy was a managing director in the Bank of America Merrill Lynch Financial Technology Investment Banking group.

Zurich in North America named Marcus Cooper as senior vice president for national sales and strategic relationships. Cooper will be responsible for all facets of distribution, sales and marketing with national strategic brokers. He will manage three primary functions, including the national strategic broker strategy for Zurich in North America. He will collaborate, partner and coach a cross-functional field group for establishing a common organizational sales culture, and will be responsible for managing the alignment of Zurich in North America’s sales and distribution practices with the business units. Before joining Zurich in 2007, Cooper was assistant vice president and branch manager with Crum & Forster. Prior to that, he held key management roles with American International Group.

Lane A. Schaffer will assume the position of senior vice president for Torus (Bermuda) Services, newly formed MGA established by UK-based Torus Insurance Ltd. Schaffer joins Torus from AIG, where he most recently led the operations and strategic direction of a department charged with securing new and renewal business for Fortune 2000 accounts. Prior to AIG, he was a partner at Evans & Clesi in New Orleans. He began his career in insurance defense in 1989 with Lobman, Carhahan & Batt.

In addition, Mark St. Aoro has joined its P/C team as Global Casualty Product Line executive. In this newly created position he will be responsible for ensuring underwriting consistency and quality across the Torus casualty platforms worldwide, oversee the development of new products and IT infrastructure and maintaining all internal and regulatory compliance standards. He will be based in Torus’ New Jersey office. St. Aoro joins Torus from C.V. Starr & Co. where he was most recently responsible for the development of new product initiatives. He held previous positions with Great American Insurance, Chubb and Zurich.

Topics Agencies Claims