People and Places

Dallas-based wholesaler Heartland Marketing Group named Jim Bishop as president. He will be responsible for Heartland’s wholesale and excess and surplus insurance operations.

Bishop joins the operation from The Hartford where he was most recently the select manager for their Southwest office. He has over 20 years of insurance experience and has been both with carriers and managing general agencies.

The Republic Group, based in Dallas, promoted Ron Lawson to vice president, Personal Lines; appointed Tony Gonzalez to succeed Lawson as assistant vice president, Marketing and Product Development; and added Jay C. Williams as personal lines underwriting process manager.

Lawson joined Republic in 2004 as director of Product Development and Marketing and was promoted to assistant vice president in 2005.

He began his insurance career with Safeco Insurance Company in Atlanta in 1986. During his eighteen years at Safeco, he held increasingly senior positions, including that of assistant vice president of Marketing for the Dallas region. He later joined Cypress Texas Lloyds, a monoline personal property insurer, as director of Sales.

Lawson serves on the Board of Governors of the Texas FAIR Plan Association, the Governing Committee of the Texas Automobile Insurance Plan Association (TAIPA) and the Board of Directors of the Southwest Insurance Information Service (SIIS). He also is a past director of the Texas Windstorm Insurance Association.

Prior to joining Republic, Gonzalez was assistant vice president – Region Sales and Distribution Leader for Safeco Insurance. During his seventeen years at Safeco he held positions in the disciplines of sales, commercial lines, territory management, and premium audit. Prior to his tenure with Safeco, Gonzalez focused on premium auditing in his positions with American General, USF&G and Crum & Forster.

Gonzalez is active in industry affairs, serving as a director of the Insurance Council of Texas (ICT), president of ICT’s Educational Foundation, chair of ICT’s Audit Committee and co-chair of the Independent Insurance Agents of Dallas Committee on Agency and Company Relations.

Williams will manage Republic’s customer support and agency automation units, oversee audits and ensure Sarbanes-Oxley compliance. His initial focus will be to identify workflow process improvements and to implement a personal lines training program.

Prior to joining Republic, Williams worked for King & Robertson Insurance Agency in Albany, Texas, and Hargrave Insurance Agency in Cisco.

Higginbotham & Associates added commercial property and casualty broker J. Ryan Perry to its Dallas branch office. Perry was most recently a top-two producer and vice president at Sleeper Sewell Insurance Services Inc. According to the announcement, Perry was the first broker under the age of 30 to write one, then two accounts in excess of $1 million in premium each and was the fastest growing producer in the firm’s history. Perry potentially brings to Higginbotham a book of business valued at more than $600,000.

Perry has experience with liability programs for contractors and manufacturers. He is a member of the Plumbing-Heating-Cooling Contractors Association (PHCC) and the Texas Contractors Association.

Before joining Sleeper Sewell in 2003, Perry worked in the entertainment industry, appearing in GQ, Cosmopolitan and Men’s Health, and on television for “One Life to Live” and “The Today Show,” among other entertainment vehicles.

The Property Casualty Insurers Association of America named Deputy Secretary of Commerce David A. Sampson to serve as the association’s president and chief executive officer. Sampson takes over the reins of PCI on Sept. 4.

Sampson has served as the deputy secretary of the Commerce Department since July 2005. As the department’s chief operating officer he manages a $6.5 billion budget and 38,000 employees in 13 operating units.

Previously, Sampson served as Assistant Secretary of Commerce for Economic Development and managed the Economic Development Administration’s $400 million budget and $2.5 billion portfolio of federal economic grants and loans. Prior to joining the Bush Administration in August 2001, Sampson worked in both the public and private sectors. Governor George W. Bush appointed him chair of the Texas Council on Workforce and Economic Development. He also served as vice chair of the Texas Strategic Economic Development Planning Commission. Before beginning his career in public service, Sampson was the president and chief executive officer of the Arlington, Texas, Chamber of Commerce.

Until Sampson takes over, June Holmes, will continue to serve as the association’s interim CEO, a post she has held since Ernie Csiszar resigned as president and chief executive officer of the association effective Sept. 30, 2006. Csiszar was appointed to the position in September 2004. Holmes will return to her previous position of chief operating officer.

TAPCO Underwriters Inc., in Burlington, N.C., reported that Ken Schneider and Bill McCord have joined the company as vice presidents of marketing and underwriting.

Schneider and McCord join TAPCO with decades of experience in the insurance industry. As vice presidents, the two will focus on expanding TAPCO’s reach into Texas and California markets and aid in cultivating the company’s aggressive and strategic growth strategy.

Most recently, McCord served as senior vice president and director of the personal lines division of Farmington Hills, Mich.-based Burns & Wilcox. During his time there, McCord directed the large-scale expansion of the division from three branches to 31.

Schneider served as vice president and director of product development with Burns & Wilcox, where he was responsible for directing programs to identify new and emerging areas of excess and surplus lines insurance products and coverages.

TAPCO specializes in the placement of excess and surplus lines business for both commercial and personal lines insurance accounts. The company currently writes in nine states.

The Hartford Risk Management Division appointed Dean Butler as risk management sales practice leader for the company’s Dallas office. Butler will be responsible for national accounts/loss sensitive production underwriting and marketing to the division’s network of risk management agents and brokers in North Texas, Oklahoma and Arkansas.

Butler brings more than 15 years of industry experience both on the carrier side as well as on the brokerage side of the property/casualty industry.

The Central Texas Chapter of the Chartered Property Casualty Underwriters (CPCU) Society announced newly elected officers for 2007-2008.

The new officers are: President – Stephanie Harvey, senior underwriter of Texas Municipal League – IRP; President-elect – Kim Kimball, auto underwriting team leader of State Farm Insurance; Vice President – Michelle Kologinczak, leadership development associate of State Farm Insurance; Secretary – Meredith Hilverda, executive assistant of Mercury Insurance Group, and Treasurer – Chris Grunska, finance supervisor of State Farm Insurance.

The Central Texas Chapter will be recognized for earning the Society’s Gold “Circle of Excellence” for the last eight years during the CPCU Society’s 63rd Annual Meeting and Seminars, Sept. 8-11, 2007, in Honolulu, Hawaii.

To submit information for “People” e-mail sjones@insurancejournal.com.