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Wholesale insurance broker AmWINS Group Inc. is expanding its operations with a new office location in Morehead City, North Carolina. Karen G. Toler, formerly of Burns & Wilcox, has joined AmWINS to lead this new office, which will focus primarily on personal lines risks, including high value homeowners, condominium (HO6), excess flood and excess windstorm. Toler has been in the wholesale insurance industry for 25 years and has experience underwriting personal lines risks, particularly H06 policies.

The director of the South Carolina agency that oversees much of state government operations has resigned, six months after Gov. Nikki Haley picked her for the job, to take a role in government in her home state of Texas.

Texas Gov. Rick Perry’s office announced that Eleanor Kitzman will start her job as that state’s insurance commissioner on Aug. 15. Her term there is set to expire in February 2013. Kitzman, a 54-year old Houston native, is a former insurance commissioner for South Carolina.

A lawyer and businesswoman, Kitzman led the South Carolina Insurance Department from 2005 to 2007, when she resigned over a disagreement with former Gov. Mark Sanford on coastal insurance. She moved to South Carolina from North Carolina and founded Driver’s Choice Insurance in 1999 after lawmakers removed requirements in vehicle coverage. She grew the company to 50 employees before selling it in 2004. She lost her bid for lieutenant governor in last year’s four-way GOP primary.

The Allstate Corp. said on July 18 that the president of its Allstate Protection subsidiary was leaving the company immediately. The company gave no explanation for the departure of Joseph Lacher, who led the unit selling auto and homeowners insurance since November 2009. Lacher was brought in to fix the underperforming unit. Allstate said that until it hires a replacement for Lacher, the presidents of businesses in the Allstate Protection unit and the heads of claims and product operations would report directly to CEO Thomas J. Wilson.

S.H. Smith & Co. has announced it is opening its newest satellite office in Florida. The new office is located in Lake Worth and will be headed up by Albert J. Colosimo, Jr., who has recently been named as a senior vice president of property. Colosimo comes to S.H. Smith from Swett & Crawford where he was the national practice leader for property facilities. The Florida office is the seventh satellite office of the Hartford-based wholesale broker. The other offices are in Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New York, Ohio and Rhode Island.

Wholesaler Appalachian Underwriters Inc. (AUI) has hired veteran Robert Lowery as a broker for the Carolina region. Lowery brings 30 years of experience as an excess and surplus lines broker to AUI. He began his career in Atlanta as an underwriter for several excess/surplus companies, including American Re, prior to relocating to Charlotte, N.C. He has held positions as vice president and manager for Hull & Co. and positions with several other Charlotte-based wholesalers. He served twice as president of the North Carolina Surplus Lines Association. Appalachian Underwriters is a managing general agent and wholesale brokerage headquartered in Oak Ridge, Tenn.

Wholesale broker AmWINS Group Inc. said that Brian Henderson has joined the company as executive vice president. Henderson joins AmWINS from Peachtree Special Risk Brokers, a division of Brown and Brown Insurance, where he was a senior vice president and property broker. He began his career there in April 2001. Henderson specializes in placing coverages in Florida, with a concentration in large complex property accounts. He will be based out of Boca Raton.