People – Southeast

Nationwide Mutual Insurance Co. announced that Michael Browne, president and chief operating officer of the Harleysville Insurance, a member of the Nationwide family of companies, will retire effective May 1, 2014.

Following Browne’s retirement, Kevin Toth, who has been serving as regional vice president of mid-Atlantic operations at Harleysville Insurance, will become senior regional vice president of Harleysville Insurance and serve as the senior leader at Harleysville Insurance’s headquarters in Harleysville, Penn.

Toth will report to Tom Clark, senior vice president of field operations for Des Moines, Iowa-based Allied Group, the independent channel distribution arm of Nationwide.

Browne has led Harleysville since 2004 and also played a role in the merger of Harleysville and Nationwide in 2012. He was elected non-executive chairman of Harleysville Mutual and its subsidiary Harleysville Group in 2003 and became president and CEO of Harleysville Mutual and CEO of Harleysville Group the following year. He has been serving as president and COO of Harleysville Insurance since the merger with Nationwide.

Prior to joining Harleysville, Browne was head of the international insurance practice group at the law firm of Reed Smith, LLP, in Philadelphia. Browne also served as insurance commissioner of Pennsylvania from 1980 to 1983.

He is a highly decorated Vietnam veteran who was awarded the Bronze Star Medal with combat “V” and attained the rank of captain in the U.S. Marine Corps Reserve.

ACE Ltd. announced that John Lupica, chairman of Insurance for North America, has been named to the additional position of vice chairman of ACE Ltd. and ACE Group Holdings.

Lupica’s responsibilities encompass ACE’s property/casualty insurance operations in the U.S., Bermuda and Canada, including ACE USA, a retail broker-distributed commercial insurance business; ACE Agriculture, which offers crop insurance and agribusiness coverages through agents and brokers; ACE Westchester, which provides commercial property/casualty excess and surplus lines through wholesale brokers; ACE Private Risk Services, which markets high-value personal lines coverages through independent agents and brokers; ACE Bermuda, which offers liability, property, political risk and captive programs through large international brokers; and ACE Commercial Risk Services, which provides specialty coverages to small and midsize businesses through agents and brokers.

Lupica has more than 25 years of property/casualty insurance experience. He joined ACE in 2000 as executive vice president of the U.S. Professional Risk business and advanced to division president of the unit. He also served as division president of U.S. Regional Operations before being named president of ACE USA in 2005.

He was appointed to the additional role of chief operating officer of Insurance-North America in 2010 and to his current role in 2011. Prior to ACE, Lupica served as senior vice president for Munich-American Risk Partners Inc. and held various management positions at AIG.

Insurance broker Marsh has appointed Donald Bailey as its new head of sales for U.S. and Canada.

In this newly created position, Bailey will be responsible for executing the firm’s overall strategy and increasing the effectiveness of Marsh’s sales team. Bailey will report to Joe McSweeny, president of Marsh’s global sales organization. He will be based in New York.

Bailey joins Marsh from The Allstate Corp., where he was president of emerging businesses. He has 25 years of insurance industry experience, and has held senior positions at Willis, including CEO of Willis HRH at Willis Group Holdings and CEO of Willis North America Inc. at Willis Group Holdings Public Limited Co.