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Suburban Chicago-based Property Casualty Insurers Association of America appointed Genio Staranczak as its chief economist. Dr. Staranczak will be responsible for economic analysis on the full range of public policy issues facing the industry. He will incorporate analyses of the industry’s financial results and performance into public policy issues and have an important role in PCI’s work on such critical issues as natural catastrophe exposure, terrorism reinsurance, regulatory reform and open markets, and rating/rate-of-return regulatory proposals.
Staranczak has a background in macroeconomic analysis and forecasts, microeconomic studies, policy analysis and regulatory research. Before joining PCI, he was the principal economist for the Telecommunications Division of the Illinois Commerce Commission. His primary responsibility was filing and directing the testimony of all division analysts.
He also served as director of long-term forecasting for WEFA Group, a macroeconomic forecasting and consulting firm based in the Philadelphia area, where he directed the work of the division and authored numerous special studies on economic issues of the day such as changes in the minimum wage and the impact of a stock market crash on the economy.
PCI’s Washington D.C. (Federal) hired Benjamin J. McKay III as the senior vice president of federal government relations.
Prior to his arrival at PCI, McKay served as chief of staff for U.S. Rep. Katherine Harris, R-Fla. McKay also served for over a decade as senior staff in both the Florida House and Senate. His tenure included service to legislators on the insurance committees of both chambers, including the vice chair of the Banking and Insurance Committee in the Senate and a member of the Property and Casualty Subcommittee in the House.
He also served as deputy secretary for International and Legislative Affairs at the Florida Department of State under the Harris Administration and was promoted to chief of staff for the agency where he presided during the 2000 election.
Colemont Insurance Brokers announced the promotion of Michael Borghesi as senior vice president of Colemont-Chicago.
In addition to his promotion to senior vice president, Borghesi is taking over as head of the Colemont-Chicago’s Financial Services practice group. Borghesi has seven years of wholesale brokerage experience and over nine years of underwriting experience in Financial Service insurance lines.
Burns & Wilcox, a national specialty insurance wholesaler, underwriter and managing general agent, has appointed Michael Ehrhardt assistant manager in the St. Louis office.
Ehrhardt joins Burns & Wilcox after serving nearly seven years as president of Gateway Underwriters, an MGA and E&S brokerage firm in St. Louis.
Ace USA, the U.S.-based retail operating division of the ACE Group of Companies, announced that Jill Johnson has been named branch manager of its Minneapolis office.
In this newly-created position, Johnson will work closely with insurance brokers and clients in the Twin Cities area to cultivate relationships and expand Ace USA’s local presence. She also will manage distribution, product sales and marketing, and producer relationships in the region, which will include the states of Minnesota, Iowa, North Dakota, South Dakota and Wisconsin.
Johnson joins Ace USA with 19 years of property and casualty experience, all of it in the Midwest region. Previous roles include serving as a sales manager at Allied Insurance, operations manager for Travelers Insurance Co. and various management, marketing and underwriting positions with Liberty Mutual RAM, Berkeley Risk Services and AAA Insurance.
Ace USA is the U.S.-based retail operating division of the ACE Group of Companies, headed by ACE Limited.
New York-based Mercator Risk Services, a specialty wholesale insurance broker, has named Julie Courcelle Lewin to Midwest Casualty Practice assistant vice president.
Prior to joining Mercator, Lewin worked for six years as a broker, most recently at Tri-City Brokerage, placing all casualty insurance programs including general liability, umbrella liability and other third-party liability.
Albert ‘Buzz’ Brown, a retired chairman of Frederick Rauh and Co., a Cincinnati, Ohio-based insurance firm, and former president of Big Brothers Big Sisters of America, has been named a co-recipient by the organization of the 2006 Charles G. Berwind Lifetime Achievement Award. The Berwind Award recognizes exemplary volunteers and is the highest honor a Big Brothers Big Sisters’ volunteer can receive.
Brown has supported BBBS for more than 50 years, since first being matched with a Little Brother in Cincinnati in 1953. His Little Brother went on to become a doctor, and the two remain close. Brown continues to support the local agencies in Cincinnati where the two were matched.
Brown joined the Board of BBBSA in 1965 and served as president from 1982 to 1984. He served through the significant merger in 1977 of the Big Brothers Association (BBA) and Big Sisters International (BSI) into BBBSA. Brown also served on the board of directors of BBBS of Greater Cincinnati, where he subsequently served as president, and on the board of Catholic Big Brothers of Cincinnati. More recently, Brown served as the first president of the BBBSA Foundation Board. He remained on the board through 2000 and was involved in the establishment of the National Headquarters in Philadelphia.
The Charles G. Berwind Lifetime Achievement Award was created in 1990 by the Big Brothers Big Sisters of America Alumni Association (now known as the BBBSA Advisory Council) to recognize exceptional volunteer service to the organization. The award is named for Charles Graham Berwind, founder of Big Brothers of America, who brought together the numerous Big Brother organizations into one united federation.