People – Midwest

Overland Park, Kan.-based MutualAid eXchange (MAX) named Lisa Bage as chief operating officer. She will direct sales, marketing and underwriting operations.

Bage comes to MAX enterprise from Bankers Insurance of St. Petersburg, Fla., where she was senior vice president for Personal Lines. She has more than 20 years of increasing responsibility in insurance product management, sales and marketing with several organizations.

MAX also announced that Scott Forland is now executive vice president and chief legal officer. In this position, he will continue to direct and resource Human Resources and Administration, Compliance, Claims, IT, Information Systems, Agents Licensing, Regulatory, Legal, Data Management and serve as corporate secretary. Forland is a licensed attorney in Kansas and Missouri.

Additionally, Brenda Dutton has been promoted to vice president, Information Systems and Data Management at MAX. Dutton has 30 years’ experience in property and casualty underwriting.

Specialty Insurance Group (SIG), based in Indianapolis, appointed Marla Peters as director of Underwriting. Peters also will act as a production underwriter in the recreational facilities market.

Prior to joining the SIG team, she served as a senior vice president for a program administrator that served the sports and leisure industries.

Peters has over 20 years of experience specializing in program design, including the development of specially designed risk management plans for clients.

Specialty Insurance Group (SIG) is a member company of Everest Re Group Ltd. and operates within the specialty insurance industry. SIG provides a multitude of programs within the sports, leisure and entertainment markets.

Portage, Mich.-based insurance wholesaler J.M. Wilson added Andrea Farr in its Kansas City, Mo., office as a property/casualty underwriter. Farr will serve independent insurance agents in Missouri, Kansas, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Mississippi and Alabama.

Prior to joining J.M. Wilson, Farr was an underwriting supervisor for seven years, where she managed assistant underwriters in endorsements and automatic renewals. She also previously worked as an assistant underwriter, accounts receivable specialist, program rater and account administrator.

Farr has earned designations of INS (Associate in General Insurance), AU (Associate in Commercial Insurance) and SM (Supervisory Management).

J.M. Wilson also promoted Jennifer Councell to fleet transportation underwriter.

Councell is responsible for quoting new and renewal business for independent insurance agents in 21 states.

Councell has been with J.M. Wilson since 2007, where she began as a Transportation technician, before being promoted as fleet underwriting assistant. Previously, she worked at Manpower for 12 years, seven of which she was the branch manager for two locations. Prior to that, she was a legal secretary for Ford, Kriekard, Domeny & Byrne.

J.M. Wilson is a managing general agency and surplus lines broker.

Pinnacle Actuarial Resources Inc., headquartered in Bloomington, Ill., added Lyn Landon as controller in its home office.

Landon has more than 30 years of accounting and finance management experience, most recently working for 1st Farm Credit Services in Normal. Prior to that, Landon was director of Finance for W.M. Putnam Co., Bloomington, and owned an independent financial consulting business in Bloomington.

Pinnacle is an independent, full-service actuarial firm focused on the property/casualty insurance industry. The firm also has offices in Atlanta, Chicago, Des Moines, Indianapolis and San Francisco.

Columbia Insurance Group (Columbia) based in Columbia, Mo., promoted Scott Mackey to senior vice president and to the newly-created role of chief underwriting officer.

The group also said goodbye to retiring Jon Erickson, the company’s former senior vice president and chief claims officer. Erickson had been with the company for 17 years.

Managers in all five of Columbia’s branch offices will now report to Mackey. Additionally, Mackey will continue to oversee both personal and farm lines operations, as he did prior to his promotion.

Erickson and Mackey worked closely together prior to Erickson’s retirement.

In addition to its Columbia headquarters, Columbia has four branch locations: Atlanta; Austin, Texas; Omaha, Neb.; and Salina, Kan.

Jaclyn Johnson has been appointed professional liability specialist for Willis North America’s national construction team based in Chicago.

She will serve as a resource to clients and Willis service teams for construction companies, owners, developers and designers.

Johnson joins Willis from Zurich North America where she was a construction professional liability underwriter.