People – Midwest

Safety National Casualty Corp., headquartered in St. Louis, Mo., appointed Steve Divine senior vice president – Finance. He becomes a member of Safety National’s senior management team.

Divine began his career in 1987 with the Missouri Department of Insurance, leaving the department in 1999 as chief financial examiner and the director of the Division of Financial Regulation.

Since then, he has held increasingly-responsible positions at both private and public insurance groups before joining Safety National in 2015.

Amerisure Mutual Insurance Co., based in Farmington Hills, Mich., appointed Joanne Finnorn as vice president and general counsel.

Finnorn is responsible for all aspects of Amerisure’s Office of Legal Counsel and is a member of the company’s strategic leadership team.

Finnorn previously was general counsel at HouseSetter LLC; principal of Finnorn Law & Advisory Services; vice president and general counsel of OnStar; and general counsel of GMAC Europe in Zurich, Switzerland.

She began her career at General Motors as an attorney.

Portage, Mich.-based J.M. Wilson promoted Sherry Ihling to senior brokerage underwriter and Jennifer Tonthola to senior transportation underwriter in Portage.

The company also added Suzane Wolf-Pierce as property/casualty underwriter in Madison, Wis., and Sally Amman as assistant brokerage underwriter in Portage.

In addition, Karen Richter joined J.M. Wilson as a transportation underwriter in Westerville, Ohio.

Ihling has been with J.M. Wilson for 10 years and has 20 years of industry experience. She has a Michigan property/casualty license and a CISR (certified insurance sales representative) designation.

Tonthola has been with J.M. Wilson for 12 years and holds a CISR designation.

Prior to joining J.M. Wilson, Wolf-Pierce was a senior policy services representative for the Local Government Property Insurance Fund at an Insurance Management Company.

Amman previously was an Associate Superintendent of Schools for the Diocese of Kalamazoo Catholic Schools.

Richter previously worked at a managing general agency in Florida as a senior underwriter for transportation and professional lines, as well as an underwriter for a specialty program.

CNA in Chicago appointed Jim Gunson as vice president, Auto and Liability Claim.

Gunson joins CNA with nearly two decades of executive level insurance and legal experience, most recently serving as senior vice president, Worldwide Casualty claim manager, at Chubb where he was responsible for claim operations for General Liability, Environmental, Life Science and Mass Tort lines of business.

He also has served as a partner at Carroll, McNulty & Kull LLC, a New Jersey-based law firm and as a first lieutenant for the U.S. Army.

CNA also appointed Dieter Korte as vice president, Underwriting, for the company’s Manufacturing Segment.

Dieter joins CNA from Chubb, where he served in a variety of roles over his 25-year tenure.

David Lim has been named assistant vice president, management liability zone leader for CNA’s Northern Zone.

Lim has 13 years of industry experience. He joins CNA from Chubb, where he served as assistant vice president for the California region. Lim began his career at Travelers.

Matt Gausden joined Chicago-based Alper Services as client executive in its property/casualty commercial lines division.

With 10 years of experience in the industry, Gausden most recently worked as an assistant captive director at a large insurance broker where he managed three large captives containing 70 accounts across a variety of industries.

Previous to this, he was a program manager responsible for the day to day management of his clients’ accounts, of which he secured 98 percent retention and a consistent annual growth rate.

He holds the ARM, AIS and AINS professional designations.

Insurance broker Lockton added Molly Riley and Mary McMartin in its Omaha, Neb., office.

Riley has joined as an employee benefits producer and McMartin has joined as an employee benefits account executive.

Riley comes to Lockton from Blue Cross Blue Shield of Nebraska as a senior sales executive. She began her career in the United States Air Force, where she served for more than seven years as a staff sergeant.

McMartin also comes to Lockton from Blue Cross Blue Shield of Nebraska as the director of account management and client consulting. She previously served as assistant vice president of employee benefits at Innovative Captive Strategies, and spent six years at Holmes Murphy & Associates as a senior account manager.