People – East

Chevy Chase, Md.-based underwriting manager Victor O. Schinnerer & Company Inc. named Steve Cohen as senior underwriting manager for its management liability programs.

In his new role, Cohen will oversee the growth and development of Schinnerer’s suite of management liability products including kidnap, ransom & extortion, non-profit, healthcare, miscellaneous professional liability and international insurance portfolios.

Most recently, Cohen served as senior vice president of Marsh’s Financial and Professional Liability (FINPRO) Practice based in Washington, D.C. Prior to this, Cohen spent 12 years with Chubb underwriting a broad range of professional liability coverages.

Ascinsure Specialty Risk, an operating company of Allied Insurance Brokers Inc. in Pittsburgh, hired Curtis Kochman as senior vice president. In this role, Kochman will spearhead Ascinsure’s business development goals and overall operations within its Specialty Wholesale & Underwriting Insurance markets.

Kochman comes to Ascinsure with over 20 years of experience in the insurance industry. Most recently, he was vice president of cross-selling for Highmark Inc., where he oversaw $3 billion in sales across four different companies nationally.

Cook Maran & Associates appointed Jeff Banasz as account executive. He is based in Cook Maran’s Marlton, N.J., office. Prior to joining Cook Maran, Banasz was an insurance broker/consultant with The Graham Company for more than five years.

Previously, he served for five years as a Marine artillery officer, rising to the rank of captain. Cook Maran & Associates is an insurance broker and consulting firm offering a full range of personal and commercial insurance services.

Endurance Specialty Holdings Ltd., a Bermuda-based specialty provider of property/casualty insurance and reinsurance, announced Douglas Worman joined the company as executive vice president and chief executive officer of U.S. Insurance.

With more than 20 years experience, Worman will be responsible for a broad range of professional, casualty, property and specialty lines offered through the company’s U.S. producer network. He will be based in the company’s New York City office. Worman has served as chief executive officer of Alterra US Insurance and executive vice president of Alterra Capital, which was acquired by Markel Corp. this year.

Prior to joining Alterra in 2010, he served as managing director of Sharebridge Holdings, and as president and CEO of Sharebridge Underwriting Group. From 1992 through 2008, Worman held various underwriting and management positions at AIG, culminating in his serving as president and CEO of AIG Excess Casualty Group.

R-T Specialty, the wholesale brokerage unit of Ryan Specialty Group based in Chicago, announced Meredith Dyson is joining its property division as a senior vice president in the New York office. Dyson brings over 23 years of complex property placement experience in wholesale and retail property brokerage. Her specialties include real estate, hospitality, financial institutions, habitational, construction, and energy.

Prior to joining R-T Specialty, she was a senior vice president in the New York office of Swett & Crawford, and then with Mercator Risk Services as a senior vice president and Northeast property manager.

Earlier in her career, Dyson was a founding associate of RMC2 LLC, a wholesale insurance brokerage which was sold to American E&S in 2003. She also served as a vice president and a facultative reinsurance broker at Aon Specialty Re from 1998 to 2000.