People and Places
The Main Street America Group named Gregg Effner assistant vice president of distribution management.
Effner, who has 30 years of property/casualty industry experience, will be based at the company’s corporate headquarters in Jacksonville, Fla.
In this newly created position, Effner will develop and oversee the corporate distribution strategy. That includes researching, creating and implementing independent agency management best practices, as well as establishing a profitable and focused compensation strategy. Effner also will establish a strategy for Main Street America relative to aggregators and wholesalers, large agents and brokers.
Prior to joining Main Street America, Effner was vice president, director of corporate analytics, at Zurich North America in Schaumburg, Ill. Before that, Effner was vice president, national broker relations and cross-sell, at CNA Financial Corp. in Chicago. He also has held management rolls at Fireman’s Fund Insurance Co. USF&G Corp. and Northwestern National Insurance Group.
Mark Freeman was named middle market leader for the San Francisco office of Marsh Inc. Freeman is responsible for the delivery of services to middle market firms in the Bay Area. In addition, he will oversee the middle market efforts for the San Jose, Calif., Denver, Salt Lake City and Honolulu offices. The San Francisco office is Marsh’s third largest office worldwide.
With 27 years of experience in the insurance industry, Freeman most recently served as the area president for Arthur J. Gallagher’s San Francisco office. Previously, he spent 13 years with Acordia, the insurance brokerage arm of Wells Fargo, where his last position was southwest regional director.
Also, Marsh named Mark C. McGivney chief financial officer. As CFO, McGivney assumes responsibility for a worldwide staff of more than 1,000 professionals.
McGivney joins the firm from the Hanover Insurance Group, where he was senior vice president of finance, corporate treasurer and chief financial officer for the company’s property/casualty business. Prior to that, he worked in investment banking in the financial institutions sector at Merrill Lynch and Salomon Brothers. He was also a certified public accountant with Price Waterhouse earlier in his career.
Jeffrey Burke joined Encompass Insurance Co. as regional sales director for the company’s West Central region, headquartered in Englewood, Colo. The region includes the states of Colorado, Iowa, Kansas, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, North Dakota, South Dakota and Wyoming.
Burke comes to Encompass from American Family Insurance, where he began his career as a sales agent and served as vice president of marketing and regional vice president of sales in the company’s Northwest/Great Lakes region. Prior to that, he taught school in the Loveland and Estes Park, Colo., areas.
The Professional Insurance Agents of Washington/Alaska (PIA) elected Rich Biggs as its president and elected a new board of directors.
Other new officers include: President Elect Mark Balcos of Balcos Insurance; Vice President David Babbitt of Babbitt Insurance Group; Treasurer Barbara Kaiser of Sunset Insurance Agency; PIA Western Alliance Representative Jack McCalmant of Big Bend Insurance; National Director Scott Campbell of Insurance Services Group; and Immediate Past President Heidi Duncan-Yonker of Duncan & Associates Insurance Brokers.
New directors include: Linda Fox of Ashford McAloon, Roberts Insurance; Michael Fredrickson of Whitman Insurance Agency; Michael Schrader of Spectrum Insurance Agency; Jim Starr of Starr, Starr & Totton; and Jim Frost of Bell Anderson Insurance.
The association also recognized members at its conference. The PIA Washington/Alaska Agent of the Year is Dick Fournier, retired owner of the Fournier Group, an insurance agency with branches in Washington and Oregon. Company Person of the Year is Bill Norman of Safeco. CSR of the Year is Anna Reid of Bratrud Middleton Insurance. AAMGA Award and Chairperson of the Year is Heidi Duncan-Yonker of Duncan & Associates.
Insurance broker Beecher Carlson expanded its executive liability team with the addition of Leaticia Roberts as client service manager in Atlanta and Kimberly Fine as senior vice president from the New York office.
Roberts will be responsible for servicing and brokering executive liability products. She also has underwriting, retail and wholesale brokerage responsibilities. Prior to joining Beecher Carlson, Roberts was a client representative for the Marsh’s FINPRO team in Atlanta. Roberts has also worked at Western Risk Specialists and Swett & Crawford.
Fine has 18 years of experience in the legal industry developing educational programs for legal firms. She will focus on business and client development for executive liability products. Prior to joining Beecher Carlson, Fine served as managing director with ALM (formerly American Lawyer Media), where she worked with the editors for Corporate Counsel magazine, The American Lawyer, IP Law & Business and Law Firm Inc.
Arch Insurance Group, a subsidiary of Arch Capital Group Ltd., announced executive moves in its property division.
Michael Kmetz was promoted to senior vice president and will be the new business unit executive for Global Property, reporting to Mark Lyons, president of the Arch Insurance Group. Kmetz was regional vice president for Global Property in the Northeast Region.
Kmetz joined Arch in October 2002 and previously spent 13 years at ACE-CIGNA organizations in global underwriting and management roles, both in the field and in home offices in New York, Chicago, San Francisco and Philadelphia.
Steve Manahan was promoted to senior vice president and will be the new business unit executive for Excess & Surplus Property, also reporting to Lyons.
Manahan started his insurance career in Dublin, Ireland, in 1977 as an insurance broker working for Johnson & Higgins and Willis Faber Associates. Prior to joining Arch, he held various positions at Home Insurance, Reliance National, and Gulf Insurance in Chicago. He joined Arch in 2002.