People & Places

National

WKFC Underwriting Managers, Ryan Specialty’s managing general underwriter headquartered in Melville, New York, promoted Ravi Singhvi to president of WKFC and Joan Bauer to chief operating officer.

Singhvi joined WKFC in 2018 and was most recently the MGU’s chief operation officer. Before WKFC, Singhvi served as vice president of analytics at AJG/RPS from 2011-2018.

Bauer has been with WKFC since 2010, initially training as an underwriter before being promoted to vice president, deductible payback lead and property underwriter.

AmTrust Financial Services Inc., a global specialty property/casualty insurer headquartered in New York, added Ken Surian and Brian White to its commercial lines team.

Surian joins AmTrust as senior vice president, product management. He most recently served as vice president, small commercial state product management at Travelers. He also held product management positions at Liberty Mutual Insurance, OneBeacon Insurance, Unitrin Insurance (now Kemper) and Leader Insurance.

White joins AmTrust as vice president, product strategy. He most recently served as director — P/C, product and underwriting at Nationwide.

QBE North America promoted Michael Foley to president, commercial insurance. Foley will be responsible for planning, directing, and executing the vision for lines of business, including middle market, commercial casualty, workers’ compensation programs and commercial property programs.

Before joining QBE in April 2022, Foley served as the global chief underwriting officer for casualty and healthcare at Berkshire Hathaway Specialty Insurance and in leadership roles at AIG. He started his insurance career in the middle market business at The Hartford.

QBE is headquartered in Sydney, Australia, and the North American division is headquartered in New York, New York.

Allianz Global Corporate & Specialty (AGCS) appointed Gordon Browne as global head of specialty.

Browne joins AGCS in New York to lead the underwriting and further development of its specialty business, which includes aviation, energy and construction, entertainment, and marine.

Browne was most recently global head of energy and construction and head of North America Specialty for AIG. He has almost 20 years of industry experience in the United States and United Kingdom.

East

The MEMIC Group, headquartered in Portland, Maine, promoted three veteran team members to key managerial roles.

Janine Bard has been promoted to director of claims, Maine region. Bard started as a compensation specialist in 2002 before being promoted to claim team manager in the Northeast and then a claim team manager in the Mid-Atlantic region. She has more than 25 years of experience in workers’ compensation.

Ben Delcourt has been named director of underwriting. Since joining MEMIC in 2012 as an account analyst, Delcourt has been promoted to associate underwriter in 2014, underwriter I in 2015, underwriting supervisor in 2016 and manager of underwriting in 2018.

Kaila McCracken is now director of financial planning. McCracken joined MEMIC in 2017 and, prior to her current position, served in a series of progressively more supervisory roles, from data analyst to supervisor of financial planning.

Midwest

Sarah Stephens, Marsh‘s current head of cyber for the UK and international, Marsh Specialty, will assume the role of U.S. central zone leader on May 1. Stephens will relocate to Chicago from London, England, and will lead Marsh’s 18 offices across the central region of the U.S., with responsibility for client initiatives, new business and talent development.

Stephens joined New York, New York-based Marsh from JLT in 2019 as cyber, media and technology leader within the UK financial and professional services practice.

Before JLT, Stephens spent 12 years with Aon, starting as a client specialist, and was named Aon’s head of cyber and commercial errors and omissions for Europe, the Middle East and Africa in 2014.

AAdvantage Insurance Group, headquartered in Glen Carbon, Illinois, hired Sondra Berg as personal lines account executive. Berg will focus on maintaining, expanding, and servicing the agency’s clients.

Berg has worked in the insurance industry for nearly 10 years. Before joining AAdvantage, she worked in various capacities at a local insurance agency.

Founded in 2009, AAdvantage Insurance Group serves clients in 19 states, with the majority in Illinois and Missouri.

Alive Risk, an amusement, sports and entertainment-focused managing general underwriter of Ryan Specialty, hired Richard Rutkin as a relationship and marketing executive.

Alive Risk is headquartered in Minneapolis, Minnesota.

Rutkin joins Alive Risk with more than 30 years of experience in the development and management of property, casualty and specialty contingency insurance.

In 2018, Rutkin sold his 25-year-old wholesale brokerage firm, focused on the entertainment and sports industries, to a national excess and surplus broker. Rutkin also served as senior vice president, development, at U.S. Risk LLC.

South Central

Watkins Insurance Group named Joe Guyton and John Aoueille as new shareholders.

With over a decade of commitment to the agency, Guyton and Aoueille have demonstrated their expertise in risk and insurance solutions.

Guyton, vice president, brings a wealth of knowledge about industry trends and regulations.

Aoueille, vice president, is an experienced insurance professional who leads the agency’s Marble Falls, Texas, office.

Watkins Insurance Group is based in Austin, Texas.

Kristin Lonergan joined Cadence Insurance Inc., headquartered in Houston, as Dallas/Fort Worth market president. In her new role, she will build and lead a commercial, personal and group benefits practice and introduce key offerings such as Cadence Business Solutions and Cadence Risk Solutions to the Dallas/Fort Worth market.

Lonergan is a second-generation insurance specialist with nearly 40 years of insurance experience. Before joining Cadence Insurance, Lonergan served for almost 23 years as partner and executive vice president for Dallas-based Sleeper Sewell Insurance.

David Bolduc has been appointed public counsel for the Texas Office of Public Insurance Counsel (OPIC) for a term set to expire on Feb. 1, 2025. OPIC represents the interests of insurance consumers in regulatory matters relating to insurance rates, rules, and forms.

Bolducis has been the acting public insurance counsel for OPIC. Previously, he served as the deputy public counsel for OPIC, as an attorney for the Office of Policy Development Counsel for the Texas Department of Insurance, as general counsel for the Texas Natural Resource Conservation Commission, as a division chief in the Office of the Attorney General of Texas, and as deputy general counsel at the Texas Department of Agriculture.

Southeast

Keystone Insurers Group, a Pennsylvania-based participant-owned agency network, named Brian Erwin as state vice president for Kentucky and Ohio.

Erwin comes to Keystone from WestBend Mutual Insurance, where he was senior regional sales manager, the company said in a news release.

Keystone, launched in 1983, now includes 300 agencies in 19 states.

The Tennessee Department of Commerce and Insurance appointed Robert Judson Jones, a licensed pharmacist, director of pharmacy benefits manager compliance.

As a clinical pharmacist and TennCare provider educator for more than 20 years, Jones has worked directly with PBMs and pharmacies, TDCI said in a bulletin.

The position is a new one, created by a law approved in 2022 by the Tennessee General Assembly that allows pharmacies to appeal their reimbursement from PBMs, directly to the TDCI. Pharmacists may also file formal complaints about PBMs.

Atlanta-based InsureTrust, a cyber insurance specialty broker, named Florence Levy executive vice president.

Levy previously was a director of cyber incident management with another global broker. She also served in senior cyber roles at three other brokerages.

InsureTrust is part of Starwind Specialty, a division of CRC Group.

West

PCF Insurance Services in Lehi, Utah, named Brandon Gray to the newly created role of vice president of treasury.

Gray leads investment strategies, treasury operations and financing activities, and provides treasury-related acquisition due diligence and integration support.

Gray comes to PCF Insurance from Ancestry, where was treasurer. Before Ancestry, Gray held several roles over 13 years at Huntsman Corp., served as senior internal auditor at Novell, and spent three years as a senior auditor at PwC.

The Surplus Line Association of California, headquartered in San Ramon, promoted Barbara Trumbly to senior vice president and hired Yusuf Mayet as the organization’s vice president for compliance.

Trumbly previously served as the association’s vice president for human resources. An attorney, Trumbly previously served as president of TruHR Legal Consultants PC; director of human resources and client services at Centricity Solutions; and human resources manager at ATI Architects and Engineers.

Mayet, an insurance professional for more than 22 years, has worked at Brown and Riding, Worldwide Facilities

and AmWINS.

Alera Group appointed Cynthia Ballantyne as managing director of the West region.

The West region includes 18 offices, 36 locations and 600 employees across California, Arizona and Nevada.

Ballantyne joined Deerfield, Illinois-based Alera Group from Gallagher, where she was area president since 2016. Previously, Ballantyne was president of Bagnall, which Gallagher purchased in 2016.