People & Places

Xceedance, headquartered in Boston, appointed Peter Flynn as senior vice president, personal lines, Americas.

Flynn brings 25 years of insurance experience, having spent the first 15 years of his career various roles with Chubb and, more recently, as senior vice president of broker development at PURE.

Zurich North America appointed Ann Chai as chief risk officer. She is based in Zurich North America’s Schaumburg, Illinois, headquarters.

Chai, who previously served as head of finance for U.S. Middle Market at Zurich, succeeds Colleen Zitt, who returned to Zurich North America’s Finance team in the new role of vice president of end-to-end process controls.

Chai previously served as vice president and actuary for Zurich North America’s Finance and Actuarial team. She will be a member of Zurich’s global leadership team, the risk management executive committee and Zurich North America’s executive committee.

World Insurance Associates LLC, headquartered in Iselin, New Jersey, named John Peterson chief growth officer.

Peterson comes to World with over 30 years of leadership experience, including several leadership roles at Aon Risk Services. He is based in Chicago.

Frank Costa, World’s current chief growth officer, will move to the newly created role of national growth leader.

Donegal Insurance Group, headquartered in Marietta, Pennsylvania, named two new regional vice presidents.

Wes Konchar will lead Donegal’s Marietta region, comprised of Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, Maine and New Hampshire. A 15-year Donegal veteran, Konchar most recently served as Donegal’s regional sales manager for Pennsylvania.

Konchar takes the reigns as regional vice president of the Marietta Region from Bill Anderson, who will transition to senior vice president of marketing operations.

Shealin Mulcahy will lead Donegal’s Atlantic south region, which includes Maryland, Delaware, Virginia, the Carolinas, Tennessee and Georgia.

Mulcahy joined Donegal in 2013, most recently serving as regional sales manager.

Mulcahy succeeds Noland Deas, who has been named Donegal’s senior vice president of field operations and national accounts.

The board of trustees of The Insurance Library Association of Boston elected Sonya M. Ross president and board chair.

Ross is director, risk strategy and financing, in the Harvard University office of risk management and audit services.

Before joining Harvard in 2022, Ross was director of risk services at Northeastern University, and previously held various positions at Aon Risk Solutions, InterContinental Risk Management Consulting, Arthur J. Gallagher & Co. and Albert Risk Management Consultants.

In addition, the board elected Edward J. Donahue Jr. (Aflac), as first vice president, Ann F. Lamson (Quincy Mutual Group), as second vice president, Nancy D. Adams (Mintz), as counsel, Meredith K. Mangan, CPCU (AIG), as immediate past president and Michael A. Pezza Jr. as secretary.

Robert Jones has joined Coalition as head of global claims.

Jones previously spent 32 years at AIG where he most recently served as the executive vice president of financial lines, specialty claims.

Jones will lead the development of the global claims offering, in partnership with senior leaders across Coalition’s insurance organization.

Jones also will manage Coalition’s vendor network of external service providers and help the internal underwriting teams develop risk-selection strategy.

Liberty Mutual Insurance appointed John Krupczak head of U.S. Energy (Property), part of the Liberty Specialty Markets (LSM) business unit.

Krupczak will oversee all property solutions across mid-size and large energy businesses in the U.S.

Krupczak has been with Liberty Mutual for 12 years. Previously, he held the positions of underwriting manager and senior risk engineer, U.S. Energy.

Everest Insurance, the insurance division of Everest Group, has established a dedicated private equity practice.

Dan Reinert has been appointed private equity vertical leader. Most recently, Reinert oversaw private equity within Everest Specialty Underwriters.

Everest named Matt Murray head of private equity distribution. Murray joined Everest in 2016 as northeast region distribution leader for North America.

Carlton Maner retired as CEO of AXIS Capital‘s U.S. division and global property practice leader.

He has resigned from the WSIA board of directors upon his retirement, per its bylaws. Maner served on the board from 2010-2016 and 2021-2023. He will continue as chair of the WSIA Diversity Foundation in his retirement.

WSIA President Dave Obenauer appointed current WSIA Board Director Phillip McCrorie of RSUI to the secretary position and Janet Jordan-Foster of AXIS Capital to the director position.

Michael Lezynski joined Alliant Insurance Services, headquartered in Irvine, California, as executive vice president within the company’s Alliant Americas division.

Based in Red Bank, New Jersey, Lezynski is responsible for growth and expansion in the New Jersey and Southeastern Pennsylvania markets.

Lezynski joins Alliant with more than 30 years of industry experience. Before joining Alliant, Lezynski was president within the New Jersey office of USI Insurance Services and previously served as a vice president at Aon.

XPT Specialty, headquartered in New York, New York, hired a production and underwriting team to serve Middle Atlantic and Northeast clients.

The new team is led by Gregg Guerreiro, executive vice president and regional leader, and includes Kayte Haney, assistant vice president (AVP) and underwriting manager; Michael Haney, underwriter; Amanda Wagner, underwriter; Alex Walbrandt, AVP/underwriter and Jon Gindhart, underwriter.

Integris Group, headquartered in Glastonbury, Connecticut, promoted Garrett P. Cronin to chief underwriting officer.

Cronin has over 25 years of experience in the insurance industry. He joined Integris in 2018 as director of underwriting and was promoted to vice president of underwriting and member services in 2020.

Valley Insurance Agency Alliance (VIAA), headquartered in St. Louis, Missouri, promoted Bill Kaatman to director of growth.

Kaatman brings 17 years of experience in the insurance industry, previously serving as the director of enterprise development and digital agency coach at VIAA.

Kaatman joined VIAA in 2021.

Iowa-based benefits consultant John Krieger joined Alliant Insurance Services as vice president within its employee benefits group.

Krieger joins Alliant with more than 20 years of experience. Before joining Alliant, Krieger served as senior regional marketing manager for Lincoln Financial Group and senior group sales representative with Sun Life Financial.

Atain Insurance Companies, headquartered in Farmington Hills, Michigan, hired Tom Dassow as vice president and head of primary liability, leading Atain’s newly formed general liability brokerage unit. He is based in Waukesha, Wisconsin.

Most recently, Dassow led CM Vantage Specialty Insurance Company’s casualty division. Previously, he held underwriting leadership positions with American Family Brokerage and Global Indemnity.

Wallace & Turner Inc., headquartered in Springfield, Ohio, named Mary Jo Leventhal director of operations and business development.

Leventhal has more than 25 years of experience in the insurance industry. Before joining Wallace & Turner, she was a commercial lines placement manager with Kraft Lake Insurance Agency.

Jewelers Mutual Group, headquartered in Neenah, Wisconsin, hired two new leadership team members.

Nick Tenekedes is now senior vice president of digital solutions. Tenekedes joins Jewelers Mutual with over 15 years of experience. Most recently, he was the vice president, marketplace at Getaround.

Howard Stone joined Jewelers as vice president, global risk and analytics. He has over 30 years of progressive loss prevention experience. Most recently, Stone was director, loss prevention and operations at Amazon in Seattle.

California-based Alliant Insurance Services named Chris Meadows a senior vice president for its Americas Division, based in Nashville.

He has 37 years of experience in risk management and recently was vice president for a national brokerage.

St. Petersburg, Florida-based American Coastal Insurance Corp. named Svetlana Castle as its new chief financial officer and promoted Andy Gray to chief compliance and risk officer.

Castle, who holds a law degree and is a certified public accountant, has 16 years of experience in the insurance business.

Gray, also a CPA, joined the company in 2017. He previously was a partner with Thomas Howell Ferguson, an accounting firm.

Alliant Insurance Services, headquartered in Irvine, California, appointed Greg Zimmer chief executive officer.

Zimmer joined Alliant in 1998 as chief financial officer and was named president in 2007. He assumes the role from Alliant leader Tom Corbett, who remains the company’s

executive chairman. Corbett, who joined Alliant in 1977, served as Alliant’s CEO for over 30 years.

Alliant named Ralph Hurst president. He previously oversaw the company’s retail brokerage operations.

Peter Arkley was named president, national brokerage, overseeing retail property/casualty and employee benefits. Sean McConlogue will lead Alliant underwriting and consumer solutions as president.

The new roles take effect April 1.

SES Risk Solutions, headquartered in Irvine, California, named Shaun Shenouda president. Shenouda takes over the role from Bill Mecklenburg, who has assumed leadership of Alliant Underwriting Solutions as senior managing director.

Shenouda previously served as chief operating officer of SES.