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Madison, Wisconsin-based American Family Insurance named Todd Fancher as its first digital transformation officer.
Fancher will oversee American Family group’s strategic investment in technology and practices that provide better service and value to customers, such as artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning and advanced analytics.
Fancher’s promotion follows American Family’s recent purchase of Networked Insights, a Chicago-based data and analytics software company.
Fancher joined American Family Insurance in 1986 and has held a number of positions across the company, including leadership positions with its exclusive agency force.
Succeeding Fancher as president of American Family Life Insurance Co. is Rich Steffen.
Steffen joined American Family in 1993 and has held multiple American Family executive positions. He was appointed customer experience vice president in 2016 and sales strategy and support vice president in 2017.
American Family Insurance Group, which celebrated its 90th anniversary in 2017, sells American Family-brand products, including auto, homeowners, life, business and farm/ranch insurance in 19 states.
ONI Risk Partners in Evansville, Indiana, added Dave Swan as a commercial risk adviser.
Swan focuses on the identification, assessment, and management of the overall impact and cost of risk to his mid-to-large commercial clients to help improve their bottom line.
He most recently worked for Irvine, California-based Envision, as its central United States account executive.
Chicago, Ill.-based Old Republic International Corp. named Jeffrey Lange senior vice president in underwriting and distribution of the Old Republic General Insurance Group Inc. Concurrently, he will become a member of ORGIG’s office of the chief executive officer, this segment’s senior strategy and policy-setting executive group.
Lange’s insurance career spans more than 24 years, most of which were at the Hartford Insurance Group.
Old Republic is a publicly held insurance organization. The company is organized as an insurance holding company whose subsidiaries market, underwrite and provide risk management services.
Ohio Insurance Agents Association (OIA) added Craig Niess as business planning and valuation manager.
Growing OIA’s vision to be a “change agent for agent change,” Niess will lead the association’s initiatives to build and develop business solutions in the areas of agency valuation, succession planning and business planning. As an expert advisor, he will help independent agents set up a plan for long-term success.
Niess has more than seven years of financial and operational consulting experience with independent agents through his tenure at Marsh, Berry & Co. In this role, he launched new products, provided customized consulting services, developed and implemented business plans, and created financial models.
Recently, Niess worked for a startup in Cleveland and brings his entrepreneurial spirit cultivated from that experience to his role at OIA.
Lockton Benefit Group (LBG) has added Mike Mascolo as chief operating officer (COO).
Based in Kansas City, Missouri, Mascolo will focus on coordination and collaboration across the benefits group, as well as play an essential role in working with insurers and other business partners.
Mascolo has been in the healthcare and insurance business for more than 20 years, spending the last decade with Wells Fargo Insurance. As the employee benefits national practice resource leader for Wells Fargo Insurance, Mascolo guided his client consulting teams in their thought leadership and resource development activities.
Founded in 1966, Kansas City-based Lockton is a global professional services firm with 6,500 associates worldwide.
Chicago-based commercial insurer, CNA, has appointed Carrie Goesel as vice president, Financial Institutions Underwriting.
Goesel is responsible for leading the Financial Institutions underwriting practice, including asset managers, banks, insurance companies, private equity and venture capitalist.
She joined CNA from Chubb, where she most recently served as senior vice president, Financial Institutions.
Over the course of Goesel’s 19-year insurance career, she has held a variety of Financial Institutions underwriting and management positions of increasing responsibility at Travelers and Chubb.