People

American International Group Inc. named Nicholas J. Ashooh as senior vice president of communications. Ashooh succeeds John T. Wooster Jr. who had filled that role on a temporary basis since year-end 2005, and earlier had been AIG vice president of communications.

Ashooh will report directly to AIG President and Chief Executive Officer Martin J. Sullivan. His responsibilities will include corporate and employee communications, publications, advertising and global branding, media and public relations, marketing communications and the AIG archives. He will also manage the communications activities of all AIG domestic and overseas subsidiaries.

Most recently, Ashooh was vice president for corporate communications at American Electric Power in Columbus, Ohio. Prior to that, he was at Niagara Mohawk Power Corp. in Syracuse, N.Y.

Anne M. Garside has joined Plymouth Rock Assurance Corp. in the newly created role of Plymouth Rock Fellow. She will focus primarily on loss reserving, pricing, performance measurement, and underwriting staff management at Plymouth Rock’s Boston headquarters. According to Plymouth Rock CEO Hal Belodoff, Garside will work with the firm’s existing underwriting group and several additional Plymouth Rock Fellows “to advance our leadership in both underwriting theory and practice.”

Garside joins Plymouth Rock from Electric Insurance Co., where she had been chief actuary since 2003.

Dennis P. Gilligan has joined TD Banknorth Insurance Agency Inc. as an assistant vice president based in Wethersfield, Conn. He is responsible for commercial insurance sales to customers throughout Connecticut. Gilligan has 18 years of experience in insurance.

ReSource Pro has named Dan Epstein as chief executive officer. Epstein, formerly vice president of business development, takes over from David Watkins, who will become chairman.

ReSource Pro LLC, based in New York City, is a remote staffing firm that specializes in back office processing for insurance program managers, managing general agents and retail agents. Before joining ReSource Pro in 2005, Epstein was president and executive director of US-IBEX, which facilitated business partnerships between foreign technology companies and U.S businesses.

Great American Insurance Group’s Executive Liability Division has opened a new branch office in Toronto, Canada and welcomed Michael Shore and Oren Schemool, as underwriting managers specializing in professional liability insurance products in all 10 Canadian provinces and the Yukon, Northwest and Nunavut territories.

Shore brings six years of insurance experience in specialty lines coverage to Great American Insurance Group. Schemool brings seven years of industry experience.

The board of directors of The Commerce Group Inc., based in Webster, Mass., has created two positions to lead the company’s property and casualty insurance operations within and beyond Massachusetts.

The company’s Massachusetts insurance operations, comprised of The Commerce Insurance Company and Citation Insurance Company, will be led by James A. Ermilio, who has been named executive vice president for Massachusetts Insurance Operations.

The second new position will lead the company’s insurance operations beyond Massachusetts, comprised of American Commerce Insurance Company, based in Columbus, Ohio, and Commerce West Insurance Company, based in Pleasanton, Calif. The company said it expects to fill this position shortly.

These two business segments were led by Gerald Fels in his former role as president and chief operating officer of the company’s insurance subsidiaries. In January, Arthur J. Remillard Jr., founder, chief executive officer and chairman of the board announced he would retire at the end of July of this year. Following that announcement, Fels was elected president, chief executive officer, and chairman of the board.

In support of the two new positions, Arthur J. Remillard III, has been named executive vice president for policyholder benefits. In this role, Remillard will be responsible for managing the claims functions for Commerce Group’s property and casualty insurance subsidiaries countrywide.

Ermilio will continue to serve as general counsel of The Commerce Group Inc. and has been named executive vice president and secretary of Commerce Group. With Ermilio also assuming the new role of executive vice president, Massachusetts Insurance Operations, Louise M. McCarthy was elected to succeed Ermilio as senior vice president and general counsel of the company’s insurance subsidiaries. McCarthy formerly served as vice president and senior counsel for those operations.

The directors also elected Robert E. McKenna, vice president, treasurer and chief accounting officer, replacing Randall V. Becker, who will continue to serve as senior vice president and chief financial officer, as well as maintain responsibility for investor relations.

The Commerce Group Inc. subsidiaries include The Commerce Insurance Company and Citation Insurance Company in Massachusetts, Commerce West Insurance Company in California, and American Commerce Insurance Company in Ohio.

Manhasset, New York-based NIF Group Inc., a program administrator and general agency, has named Robert West as president of NIF Adirondack, a branch office.

Prior to joining NIF Group, West was manager of the New York State Builders Management Services LLC, a trade group representing the state’s residential building industry.

Governor M. Jodi Rell has named New Britain attorney Peter C. Mlynarczyk to the Connecticut Workers’ Compensation Commission. Mlynarczyk is corporation counsel for the city of New Britain. Mlynarczyk also works as an attorney for the New Britain firm Davila & Dilzer. Mlynarczyk has been a hearing officer for the Connecticut Department of Motor Vehicles since 1995. Mlynarczyk will be sworn in following approval from the General Assembly’s Judiciary Committee. He will serve on an interim basis, pending confirmation during the upcoming legislative session in Hartford.