People

St. Louis, Missouri-based Safety National Casualty Corp. announced management changes that are effective April 1, 2018.

Gene Maier, executive vice president and chief underwriting officer, is retiring. During his 33-year career at the company, he has worked in various underwriting capacities.

Gus Aivaliotis, senior vice president, Large Casualty, joins the executive management team, replacing Maier as executive vice president and chief underwriting officer.

Tom Grove, senior vice president, Business Development, joins the executive management team as executive vice president and chief business development officer.

Ray Harkins, senior vice president, Treaty Reinsurance, will be executive vice president and chief underwriting officer of Reinsurance.

Seth Smith, senior vice president, Workers’ Compensation Underwriting, will be executive vice president, Underwriting

Nick Kriegel, vice president deputy general counsel, will be senior vice president general counsel.

Duane Sanders joined Chicago-based Kemper Corp. as president of its Property & Casualty Division.

Sanders’ direct reports include executives who lead Kemper Preferred, Kemper Specialty, Kemper Specialty California, and Alliance United, as well as various P/C supporting functions.

Sanders joins Kemper from The Travelers, where he held a variety of roles including CEO and COO of Travelers Canada, several senior management positions in personal insurance, business insurance, claims and international, and most recently, SVP of small commercial.

Sharon McMillan has been appointed financial controller for Missouri-based Valley Insurance Agency Alliance (VIAA) and its sister company POWERS Insurance and Risk Management.

McMillan handles the planning, organization and management of the internal financial and human resources for both companies.

Previously, she worked at an Illinois insurance agency for more than 20 years. She has nearly 30 years of accounting experience.

Chicago-based CNA reported that Joyce Trimuel has accepted an expanded role, leading CNA’s operations in addition to her current role as chief diversity officer, and Bahr Omidfar has been hired as senior vice president and chief technology officer.

Trimuel joined the company as chief diversity officer last year. She has 20 years of underwriting and industry leadership experience.

In her expanded role, Trimuel will provide leadership in executing strategies that drive efficiency, innovation and process optimization in the Operations department.

Omidfar brings 28 years of experience in technology. Omidfar joined CNA from Fidelity Investments, most recently serving as senior vice president, Technology and Software Security.

CNA also made three leadership appointments within the company’s Commercial Insurance unit.

Michael Kirchgessner has been appointed senior vice president, Underwriting for Large/Complex Casualty business. He has been vice president for Umbrella underwriting since 2012 when he joined CNA from ACE.

Chris Thurman has been appointed senior vice president, Underwriting for Workers’ Compensation. He will lead the strategic direction for the workers’ compensation product line. Thurman has been with CNA since 2008.

Kelly Walsh has been appointed senior vice president, Underwriting for General Liability. Walsh, who has been with CNA since 2005 and most recently served as vice president of Branch Services, will manage the strategic direction of CNA’s General Liability product line.

Cannasure Insurance Services (Cannasure), a Cleveland, Ohio-based managing general agent and wholesale broker specializing in cannabis insurance, hired Kieran O’Rourke to lead its MGA underwriting platform.

O’Rourke has more than 20 years property/casualty underwriting and senior management experience. Prior to joining Cannasure, O’Rourke was assistant vice president of property underwriting of AmTrust Financial Services Inc (AFSI).

Omaha, Nebraska-based wholesale insurance broker and specialty workers’ comp program administrator Method added two new associates — Natasha Singh and Rob Talcott.

Singh has more than 15 years of insurance experience. Most recently she worked at New Mexico Mutual as underwriter liaison focusing on large accounts. Singh will help develop and rollout an exclusive specialty comp program in the Midwest and West regions of the U.S.

Talcott will assist with wholesale broker and exclusive specialty comp division development.