Business Moves
Safeco
Seattle-based Safeco has expanded its sales organization from five to nine regions, and has named executives to lead two of the territories.
“Independent insurance agents have consistently told us they want more personal contact,” said Spencer Donkin, senior vice president of sales and distribution. “These new regions will make that possible — and our new region executives will bring a strategic and ‘hands-on’ approach to agency relations and distribution management.”
The new Safeco sales regions are:
•Northwest: Alaska, Idaho, Montana, North Dakota, Oregon, South Dakota, Washington;
•California: California;
•West: Arizona, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico, Utah, Wyoming;
•Upper Midwest: Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Minnesota, Ohio, Wisconsin;
•Midwest: Arkansas, Iowa, Kansas, Missouri, Nebraska;
•South Central: Louisiana, Oklahoma, Texas;
•Northeast: Connecticut, Delaware, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Vermont;
•Atlantic: District of Columbia, Kentucky, Maryland, North Carolina, Tennessee, Virginia, West Virginia; and
•Southeast: Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Mississippi, South Carolina.
Chris Allen will oversee the Midwest region. Allen comes to Safeco from Progressive Insurance, where he was director of independent agency distribution. In that role, he headed a sales organization responsible for working with independent agencies in the Midwest and Northeast.
Safeco tapped Claudette Kenmir to oversee the West region. Kenmir has been with the company for 19 years in several leadership roles, including heading up Safeco’s National Sales Center in Liberty Lake, Wash.
The company plans to name leaders for the other regions in the coming weeks.
Washington Casualty
The Idaho Department of Insurance has reinstated the license of Washington Casualty Co., a subsidiary of FinCor Holdings Inc., allowing it to underwrite insurance in the state.
The reinstated license validates WCC’s improved financial position during the past nine months, FinCor said. When WCC was acquired by FinCor in Oct. 2006, the Issaquah, Wash.-based medical professional liability insurer was in receivership and was operating under restricted licenses in Idaho and Oregon.
The company now has more than $11.7 million in capital, a 10 percent increase in sales, and net new business of more than $1 million, the company said. FinCor also said WCC holds a “B+” rating by A.M. Best, and is able to write insurance limits up to $16 million through its new reinsurance program.
Farmers
Farmers Insurance Group has entered into a committed capital facility providing the company the right to issue $500 million of regulatory capital to cover catastrophic losses over the next five years in the United States. The committed capital is a commitment from financial institutions to purchase regulatory capital should a pre-defined event occur and the insurer exercises its options to issue surplus notes at pre-agreed terms and conditions, the company said.
The facility was arranged by Swiss Re Capital Markets, and is a structure developed by the reinsurance industry to use capital markets in financing catastrophic losses.
Under the transaction, if Farmers suffers severe windstorm losses in excess of $1.5 billion in states such as Texas, Arkansas, Oklahoma or Louisiana, it has the right to issue 10-year subordinated loan notes to major institutions to restore its capital base. The $500 million has been underwritten by Caylon, Commerzbank, Citigroup and Swiss Re, and has been syndicated to the world’s major commercial banks. The transaction was completed July 10, 2007, after being syndicated to international banks.
Farmers, headquartered in Los Angeles, is a subsidiary of Zurich Financial Services Group.
Zurich
Zurich Financial Services Group created a new mergers and acquisitions (M&A) unit to analyze needs and offer customized solutions for customers going through a merger or acquisition. The unit is operational in the United States and will have worldwide capabilities through offices in London and Zurich by the fourth quarter of this year.
Thomas L. Gamble has been named president of the M&A unit. Most recently, he was an executive vice president at Arch Insurance Group.