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Starr Insurance Companies has named Carmella Capitano, senior vice president, as head of primary general casualty-risk management and excess casualty. In this new role, Capitano will lead a team serving organizations with revenues of $400 million or more. She will also lead Starr’s excess casualty team. Capitano joined Starr in 2009 from American International Group and progressed as a leader in primary and excess energy. Dan Conway, executive vice president, specialty casualty, will continue to oversee Starr’s energy unit, with Les Lappe and Greg Cropp respectively managing the primary and excess divisions.
Alliant has hired Francis Rossi as vice president. In this new role, the New York-based property and casualty insurance veteran will deploy his experience in finance, insurance and risk management to a portfolio of clients. Prior to joining Alliant, Rossi was the founder, president and CEO of Rossi Capital Partners, a New York-based finance company. Before founding Rossi Capital Partners, he served as president of Insurance Brokerage with a private equity firm based in New York.
Alliant Insurance Services added Eric Smith as vice president of Alliant Healthcare, based in Austin, Texas. He will provide insurance and risk advisory services to life science clients across the U.S. Prior to joining Alliant, Smith was a senior vice president at a global insurance brokerage firm where he was responsible for client development and acquisition.
EPIC Insurance Brokers and Consultants, a retail property and casualty insurance brokerage and employee benefits consultant, has hired Principal Ed Oravetz, Principal Keith McNeely, Principal David Potts, Client Executive Elisha Johnson and Client Manager Marilu Alejandre in Houston. This group of employee benefits consulting professionals joins EPIC from Marsh & McLennan Agency — Southwest in Houston, where they worked together for more than three years. Oravetz, McNeely, Potts, Johnson and Alejandre will share responsibility for new business development and for the design, implementation, servicing and management of Employee Benefits Programs, focusing on the needs of middle-market companies across a range of business and industry.
Grace Arnold has been tapped to lead the insurance division at the Minnesota Commerce Department. Arnold will oversee solvency, policy form approval, rate review and review of insurance transactions for life insurance, health insurance, as well as property and casualty insurance business conducted in Minnesota. Before joining the Department of Commerce, Arnold served as the manager of individual and family plans at Bright Health Plan. Prior to that, she worked for the Center for Medicare, Medicaid & Marketplaces Services in Bethesda, Md., where she held several positions implementing the private insurance provisions of the Affordable Care Act at the Center for Consumer Information and Insurance Oversight.
Appalachian Underwriters Inc. has hired three new underwriters to its Commercial Specialty division. April Cook comes to AUI with a background in the underwriting industry, starting as a property and casualty renewal underwriter with an agency and then moving into workers’ compensation and then commercial lines underwriting with different companies. She will work out of AUI’s St. Peters, Mo., office, quoting commercial package submissions for West agents. Amanda Setchfield will also work on quoting commercial package accounts from AUI’s St. Peters office with a focus on Florida and Midwest states. She started with a large, independently owned wholesaler in the mid-2000s, moving from underwriting assistant to senior underwriter. Carol Armstrong will work on Xpress BOP (business owner policy) submissions both through AUI’s online rater and email submissions at AUI’s Oak Ridge, Tennessee, headquarters. Her background in commercial insurance underwriting dates back to 1989, and she most recently served as senior sales manager at another agency.
Walnut Creek, Calif.-based Relation Insurance Services has named Chris McKechnie as chief financial officer and Tim Hall as executive vice president and head of M&A (mergers and acquisitions). Most recently, McKechnie was operating partner and advisor to several financial services-focused investors. He previously worked with The Swiss Re Group. He began his career as an investment banker with Smith Barney. Hall is responsible for Relation’s M&A initiatives. He was most recently a partner and managing director at Waller Helms Advisors. He was previously a vice president in Macquarie Capital’s financial institutions group. He began his investment banking career at Cochran Caronia Waller.
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