People & Places

Michael F. Moran has joined California-based wholesale broker Network E&S Insurance Brokers, LLC, as a partner and its chief operating officer. His immediate responsibility will be to establish and to staff an office in Los Angeles. Moran brings over 27 years of brokering experience, including retail (Marsh) and wholesale (Tri-City Brokerage) to Network E&S. His specialties include placing primary and excess liability for accounts ranging from Fortune 500, difficult to place products, transportation and construction.

San Diego-based John Burnham Insurance Services announced that Iris Gladney has joined the company as vice president and marketing manager, and Courtney Lindsay has joined as vice president of loss control services.

Gladney is responsible for developing and retaining market relationships in specialized alternative risk funding and insurance programs. She also provides key technical support for commercial brokerage operations including the public entity, construction and transportation departments. Gladney has provided insurance brokerage and risk management consulting services to San Diego clients for over 23 years. Prior to joining John Burnham, she owned Independent Risk and Insurance Services, providing services to public and private entities as well as insurance brokerage firms, and managed the risk and insurance needs of large local and multinational clients for Marsh Inc.

Lindsay is responsible for coordinating and providing value added loss control products and services to John Burnham Insurance Services business partners to prevent or reduce losses and increase profitability. He has 14 years of loss control experience, most recently with St. Paul Travelers Insurance Company serving as its western regional loss control coordinator.

Los Angeles-based Venture Programs Inc.announced that Joseph Lesniak has joined the company as vice president of sales in its Western Region office. Based in Los Angeles, Lesniak is responsible for identifying new business opportunities and marketing Venture’s packages, products and services to insurance agents and brokers in the Western region, including California, Arizona, New Mexico, Nevada, Oregon, Washington, Idaho, Montana, Colorado, North Dakota, South Dakota, Wyoming, Alaska and Hawaii. Lesniak has more than 15 years of experience in insurance sales and marketing management, most recently as vice president of global brokering at Marsh Inc. in Los Angeles. He has also served as vice president of sales, marketing and account management at Marsh as a branch manager at Anderson & Anderson in Van Nuys, Calif.

Santa Ana, Calif.-based Yates & Associates announced that Linda J. Peters will be joining its Santa Ana office as an underwriter/broker. Peters will be responsible for bringing in new revenue from both contract markets and brokerage markets. She started her insurance career in 1976 at Allstate as a commercial rater. Prior to joining Yates & Associates, she spent 10 years at Risk Placement Services in Orange, Calif. Before RPS, Peters spent several years at MTS Insurance Services and also served at Monarch E&S.

Great American Insurance Group has announced the promotion of Neil A. Bethel to president of Los Angeles-based Great American Custom Insurance Services Inc., a wholly-owned subsidiary of Great American Insurance Company based in Cincinnati, Ohio. Bethel had been CFO and chief actuary of Great American Custom since 2001. Bethel directs the activities of Great American Custom’s California offices in Los Angeles, San Diego and Woodland Hills as well as operations in Boston, Chicago, Cincinnati and Seattle. Prior to his employment with Great American Custom, he spent more than 24 years as a consulting actuary for Tillinghast/Towers Perrin.

Derek O’Gorman joined Los Angeles-based Lockton Insurance Brokers as vice president. He will be responsible for marketing, servicing and responding to risk management needs of companies in a variety of industries. O’Gorman has 18 years of experience in the insurance industry. He began his career as a risk management underwriter for AIG where he focused on large national accounts and later as a surplus lines underwriter for General Reinsurance. Most recently, he served as a senior vice president of Marsh Risk & Insurance where he specialized in “at risk” accounts. During his 10-year tenure at Marsh, he was responsible for regional market relations, structuring casualty programs for large accounts and developing casualty training courses.

Beecher Carlson Holdings Inc. announced the hiring of Noreen Graham as managing director in its Los Angeles office. Graham’s primary responsibilities will be production and retention of risk management accounts as well as growing the Los Angeles office through recruitment and resource development. With more than 13 years of experience in the insurance industry, Graham began her career as a large account underwriter before moving to risk management brokerage in 1996. She worked for Beecher Carlson for six years as an account executive, specializing in program design and implementation for national accounts. In 2001, Graham moved from Beecher Carlson to Arthur J. Gallagher as an alternative risk financing specialist and new business producer to help the company grow its risk management niche. She will focus on large account production, retention and oversight in her new position at Beecher Carlson.
ISU Insurance Services of San Francisco has announced the addition of Dan Garfin to its employee benefits, retirement and estate planning department. He will coordinate cross-selling of employee benefits products at ISUSF and he will lead the development of ISU Employee Benefit Services, an ISU International resource providing cross selling, customer service and benefit plan support and communications technology products to the insureds of the branch offices in the nationwide ISU Network. Garfin has served at BenefitsAlliance and while at BenefitPoint he served as a senior analyst and in broker development.

Marshall and Swift/Boeckh appointed James Thornton to COO. Thornton is responsible for managing all MS/B operations. Prior to joining the company, Thornton was a senior executive officer of Land America Tax and Flood Services and its predecessor company, LERETA. Thornton will be located at the company’s Los Angeles office.

ACE USA, the U.S.-based retail operating division of The ACE Group of Companies, has appointed David Zelickman as senior vice president and Boston branch manager for ACE Risk Management. Zelickman will have overall responsibility for overseeing branch operations, new business development and underwriting activities. Zelickman most recently served as casualty manager for the Boston branch of ACE Risk Management. He joined ACE USA in 2000, previously holding a variety of positions in the large-risk field operations arena with Reliance Insurance Company and Crum & Forster Insurance Company.

Delaware Valley Underwriting Agency Inc. in Hatboro, Pa., announced new management assignments.

Rita Hanebury assumes responsibility as vice president/manager. Hanebury’s previous title was vice president/assistant manager. She will continue to oversee DVUA’s property/ casualty department. Hanebury has 33 years of experience in the insurance industry and has been employed at DVUA since 1976.

Judy Klingerman will supervise the brokerage division. Klingerman continues to manage the administrative functions in her role as vice president. She has 15 years of underwriting and management experience.

Joel Kaplan becomes binding authority manager, while he maintains his role as a vice president in the property/casualty department. Kaplan’s responsibilities include managing carrier and broker relationships, guiding DVUA’s employees through placements with carriers, and training underwriters. He has 20 years of insurance industry experience.

Roger McManus was elected to the board of directors of Westfield Insurance. He currently serves as the president of Westfield. Beginning as a trainee in 1976, McManus held various leadership positions within Westfield throughout his 28-year career, including executive vice president of administration and senior vice president of information systems, Westfield Life and staff operations. McManus serves as board director for the Insurance Information Institute, is a board member of Westfield Financial Co.

Chubb Chief Information Officer Charles McCaig has been designated the new chair of ACORD‘s board of directors and Barbara Koster, chief information officer of Prudential Financial, was chosen to be the chair-elect.

Responsible for information technology, McCaig has been with Chubb since 1991. He chaired the operations committee for the ACORD board of directors. Now he oversees the use of information technology company-wide, as CIO of Prudential Financial.

Koster heads the formulation of policies, the establishment of standards including architectures and development of guidelines and management practices.

Other new directors on the ACORD board include Lawrence Brandon, American Institute for CPCU and John Chu, senior vice president, eBusiness and technology, for The Hartford Financial Services Group.