People & Places

National

IMA Financial Group, headquartered in Denver, Colorado, hired Stephanie Crochet as national energy practice leader. Crochet has over 25 years of experience in the energy sector, most recently serving as director, risk and insurance with Plains All American Pipeline, L.P. Crochet’s career launched in quality management with Det Norske Veritas before transitioning in 2001 to the brokerage side of the insurance “trifecta”–consumers, brokers, and insurers. She has spent the last 15 years in risk management for Plains All American Pipeline and GulfMark Offshore. As national energy practice leader at IMA, Crochet will oversee a team of over 75 energy insurance professionals and lead IMA’s expanding energy specialty practice out of Houston.

Willis, a WTW business headquartered in New York City, appointed Dom Spinelli as head of transactional insurance claims for North America. Based in Boston, he leads the claims function within Willis’ Alternative Asset Insurance Solutions (AAIS) industry vertical division. Spinelli has 15 years of experience in insurance and litigation, most recently serving as head of contingent and litigation risk for North America at VALE Insurance Partners. He previously led the contingent legal risk insurance team at Liberty Global Transaction Solutions and worked as a representations and warranties insurance underwriter. Earlier in his career, Spinelli was a litigator, managing a wide range of commercial and insurance coverage disputes across the country.

Eric Amadori joined Zurich North America as the head of management liability. Amadori has over 20 years of experience underwriting and managing financial line products. His most recent position was managing director of the management professional liability team at Markel, where he worked for 14 years. He earlier held leadership and underwriting positions at Arch Insurance and AIG.

Berkshire Hathaway Specialty Insurance (BHSI), based in Boston, made leadership moves in its North America casualty business.

Matt Hale is head of U.S. casualty underwriting operations. In this new role, he will oversee BHSI’s regional casualty underwriting teams across the U.S. and work closely with Galan Riley, head of casualty, Canada, to coordinate BHSI’s North American casualty strategies. Hale is based in Chicago.

Marcie Stephan is head of casualty, U.S. Central Region. She will oversee BHSI’s casualty underwriting teams, except construction, in the Central U.S. She is based in Chicago.

John Roe is head of North American construction, including construction casualty, construction professional liability and homebuilders liability. He will oversee BHSI’s U.S. construction underwriting team and support the build out of construction casualty field operations.

Liberty Mutual’s Timothy M. Sweeney, president and chief executive officer, has been elected chairman of Liberty Mutual Holding Co. Sweeney succeeds David H. Long, who is retiring.

Long has been with Boston-based Liberty Mutual for 40 years. He was named president in 2010, CEO in 2011, and chairman in 2013.

Sweeney has been with the insurer for about 30 years and became Liberty Mutual’s 10th CEO in its 110-year history in January 2023 after Long’s retirement. Long then became executive chairman.

IMA Financial Group, headquartered in Denver, Colorado, hired Erik Wargo as executive vice president, head of property. Wargo joins IMA’s headquarters team in Denver. Wargo has over two decades of brokerage experience specializing in commercial property programs for risk management clients, with prior experience as vice president, property placement specialist at Marsh; assistant vice president, property broker at Crump; senior vice president, property marketing account executive at McGriff; and senior vice president, director, Northwest Property at Lockton.

East

The Hanover, based in Worcester, Massachusetts, named Dick Lavey to the newly created role of chief operating officer.

Lavey has 35 years of experience in insurance and technology, including the past 19 years at The Hanover Group. Since 2017, he has been executive vice president for agency markets. He will continue to lead personal lines and commercial business, as well as sales and distribution, corporate underwriting, marketing, and risk solutions functions. He also will lead the collaboration between the company’s business and technology organizations. Before joining The Hanover in 2004, Lavey was vice president of strategic initiatives for The Hartford’s property and casualty organization and vice president of strategic marketing for The Hartford’s Select Customer division. Before that, he worked at ChannelPoint and Bowstreet software companies and was a strategy consultant for CSC Healthcare.

Vermont Mutual Senior Executive Assistant Paula Clark was recently named regional vice president of the International Association of Insurance Professionals (IAIP), announced at the Region I 2025 Conference held in Hasbrouck Heights, New Jersey. Vermont Mutual is headquartered in Montpelier, Vermont.

NFP, an Aon company headquartered in New York City, named Joseph D’Agostino as senior vice president, property and casualty. D’Agostino has nearly two decades of experience supporting companies in navigating IPOs, acquisitions and other complex risks. He previously held the position of partner in the mergers and acquisitions and transaction solutions practice at Willis Towers Watson. He also spent over a decade with Aon as a senior vice president and leading broker in financial and transactional risks.

Southeast

Security First Insurance, headquartered in Ormond Beach, Florida, named Scot Moore as chief financial officer. Moore has 20 years of industry experience, including budget development, investment portfolio management and audits. He joined Security First in 2022 as chief accounting officer.

Lloyd Stofko is the company’s new chief reinsurance officer. He joined Security First in 2020 as vice president of ceded reinsurance. Before that, he spent 25 years at Guy Carpenter as a reinsurance broker.

James “Jay” Robinson, formerly with Aon, joined World Insurance Associates as Southeast division revenue leader. Robinson has over 20 years of experience in the insurance industry and was recently senior vice president and sales director for the Atlanta market at Aon, the global risk management firm. Before that, he was with Marsh McLennan Agency, overseeing risk and employee benefits growth.

RegEd, headquartered in Raleigh, North Carolina, appointed Kevin Bieri to the new role of chief architect. Bieri has over 15 years of technology and financial services experience. Most recently, he served as vice president of architecture at Fidelity Investments. Prior to that, he was director of architecture at ION Group, following its acquisition of Allegro Development Corp., and held engineering and architecture roles at BlueCrest Capital Management, Credit Suisse and Barclays Capital.

Midwest

Inszone Insurance Services, headquartered in Rancho Cordova, California, made a series of leadership promotions in its Midwestern region.

Jared Strong is now vice president of Illinois. Strong has been with Inszone for five years, previously serving as a producer.

Brian Cook has been appointed vice president of Iowa & Strategic Partnerships. Formerly the COO and owner of Loft and Co., Brian has extensive experience in operational leadership, licensing, infrastructure and carrier relations. In this expanded role, he will drive efficiency across Iowa.

Unison Risk Advisors (URA), headquartered in Cleveland, Ohio, hired Joe DiRocco, formerly an executive with Fifth Third Bank, as its new chief financial officer. Brett Tomoff also joined the insurance brokerage and risk management firm as its vice president of financial planning and analysis.

DiRocco has over three decades of experience, most recently serving as the asset-based national sales manager at Fifth Third, where he was also the regional president for Northeastern Ohio. His also served in various senior leadership roles, including Ohio president for Citizen’s Bank.

Tomoff has 15 years of experience in corporate finance, financial planning, treasury, data analytics and IT. Before joining URA, He most recently served as vice president of finance at TravelCenters of America.

West

Venbrook Group launched a new corporate benefits and specialty health division and named Alison Myers its president. The division is an expansion of the firm’s employee benefits practice.

Myers most recently served as executive vice president of the employee benefits practice. In her expanded role, Myers develops and executes national growth strategy. Venbrook is headquartered in Los Angeles.

Inszone Insurance Services, headquartered in Rancho Cordova, California, promoted Layne Bowen to vice president of Utah. Layne previously owned L.A. Bowen Insurance in Orem, Utah.

Scott Ligouri was named vice president of Colorado. Ligouri previously served as CEO and owner of Loft and Co. Ligouri takes over the role from Ann-Marie Delmonte, who is now commercial sales team manager for Colorado.

Max Cusator takes on the role of staff development manager, leading the company’s staff development efforts. Cusator focuses on training, professional development and ensuring standards of client service throughout the organization.

Josh Smith joined Alliant Insurance Services, headquartered in Irvine, California, as senior vice president and sales director within its employee benefits group.

Based in California, Smith will direct business development activities across the western region.

Smith has nearly 30 years of sales leadership experience.

Most recently, he served as district sales manager for Insperity, a national professional employer organization, where he led sales efforts in the Sacramento area. Before that, Smith was a regional sales manager for Oracle.

Josh Moreau joined Alliant as vice president of business development within its employee benefits group. Based in Los Angeles, Moreau focuses on private equity and mergers and acquisitions.

Moreau was previously chief of staff at Easy Rock Capital LLC and event manager at Manhattan Center and CFS Consulting.