People – East

Holborn, an independent reinsurance broker based in New York, hired Roderick P. Thaler as executive vice president.

In this role, Thaler will serve as a member of Holborn’s Franchise Operating Committee and will be responsible for the oversight of a number of strategic initiatives. He will be based in the firm’s headquarters in New York.

Thaler joins Holborn from Aon Benfield where he was vice chairman of the Americas. Prior to Aon Benfield, Thaler was on the North America Executive Committee for Willis Re, and headed new business initiatives for the firm. He also spent nearly two decades at Guy Carpenter, where he served as managing director and led Property and Casualty teams.

The National Association of Mutual Insurance Companies (NAMIC) hired Cate Paolino as director of state affairs for the Northeast region. Paolino is based in Foxboro, Massachusetts, and will represent NAMIC member company interests in New England, New Jersey, and New York.

Paolino comes to NAMIC from Travelers, where she worked in business insurance serving as senior counsel and second vice president, Regulatory Research and Compliance. She also spent more than 10 years as senior counsel at the American Insurance Association.

Paolino’s skill set includes legislative and regulatory analysis, legislative drafting including the drafting of model legislation, experience with commercial insurance issues, and drafting and presenting testimony.

Preferred Mutual Insurance Co. in New Berlin, New York, hired Andre Hill as vice president, customer and product strategy.

In his new role at Preferred Mutual, Hill will collaborate with executive leadership and business partners to guide and direct the company’s customer insight and product strategy initiatives.

Hill joins Preferred Mutual from First Niagara Bank in Buffalo, New York, where he held the position of senior vice president and chief marketing officer.

He also previously served as a financial services industry consultant at KPMG and held leadership roles at Eastman Kodak Co.

North American Insurance Alliance (NAIA), an agency alliance based in Rangeley, Maine, hired Rebecca Sherwood as director of marketing and communications.

For the past seven and a half years, Sherwood was employed with Travelers Insurance Co. as senior sales specialist and prior to that held positions in underwriting, insurance sales, accounting and marketing.

Founded in 2009, NAIA currently has 39 member agencies which have a total of 82 locations.

Brit Ltd, a global specialty insurer and reinsurer based in London, hired Kent Stepanishen as senior vice president to launch a new Inland Marine team for Brit Global Specialty USA.

Brit said the move expands Brit Global Specialty USA’s existing E&S property offering and is part of the company’s strategy to focus on growing profitably in specialist areas where it can leverage its expertise and service.

Stepanishen comes to Brit from Catlin, where he held the position of director of U.S. Inland Marine. He will be based in Brit’s New York office.

RiskMatch, a Greenwich, Connecticut-based business intelligence and analytics firm that provides insurance portfolio management and placement services to brokers and insurers, promoted Adam Kagan to chief client engagement officer.

Kagan, who joined RiskMatch in 2013 as chief sales and marketing officer, has more than 26 years of insurance industry experience. Before joining RiskMatch, he was chief market relations officer at CRC/Crump Inc.

Continental Underwriters, a Richmond, Virginia-based managing general agency/wholesaler specializing in the placement of insurance for lumber and forest products operations, hired Corey Bounds as loss control director and Gretchen Steelman as property policy renewal team lead.

Both Bounds and Steelman come from Lumbermen’s Underwriting Alliance.

Bounds spent 13 years with Lumbermen’s as loss prevention representative and head of loss prevention for the Eastern half of the U.S.

Steelman has 14 years of insurance experience, six of those years recently at Lumbermen’s as property policy renewal team lead.

Beecher Carlson Insurance Services LLC, a specialized large account insurance broker and a wholly-owned subsidiary of Brown & Brown Inc., hired Molly Nolan as Northeast Property Practice leader in Boston and Evan Bull as managing director in New York City.

Nolan has worked in the U.S., London and European marketplaces for 19 years. She most recently worked for Lloyd & Partners in their North American Property team.

Previously, Bull was National Property Practice leader for Burns & Wilcox Brokerage.