People & Places

Lockton, headquartered in Kansas City, Missouri, appointed Tim Ryan president of its U.S. business operations.

Ryan has 19 years of experience as the COO of Lockton’s Northeast business and 30 years of industry experience.

Burns & Wilcox, headquartered in Farmington Hills, Michigan, hired Larry Paulaski as regional vice president, Southwest, and Brett Faustman as managing director, Michigan.

Paulaski is responsible for the Burns & Wilcox offices in Los Angeles, San Diego, Las Vegas and Scottsdale. Based in Arizona, he has more than 20 years of industry experience.

Faustman will oversee the company’s offices in Metro Detroit and Grand Rapids. Before Burns & Wilcox, Faustman spent 15 years in production and leadership roles at Zurich North America, Federated Insurance, Ally Financial and Arrowhead Insurance.

Conner Strong & Buckelew, headquartered in Camden, New Jersey, named Simon Leung, PharmD, to the newly created position of vice president and head of pharmacy. Leung most recently served as senior director of pharmacy client services at Rightway.

Donegal Insurance Group, headquartered in Marietta, Pennsylvania, promoted Caleb Landis to assistant vice president of commercial lines systems development. Landis joined the Donegal team 11 years ago.

The MEMIC Group, headquartered in Portland, Maine, promoted Stacey Foote to vice president of claims.

Foote, who is based in New Hampshire, oversees MEMIC’s eastern region claims handling operation, including the Northeast, mid-Atlantic and Southeast territories. Foote most recently served as director of claims for the Southeast and mid-Atlantic territories.

Encova Insurance, headquartered in Columbus, Ohio, named Michelle Shaver senior vice president, small business, commercial lines, and Carrie Lowe vice president, package lines underwriting.

Shaver most recently was a small business leader for Chubb Insurance. Lowe previously served as vice president, commercial lines project and program management at Westfield Insurance.

JM Wilson, headquartered in Portage, Michigan, hired Gina Deryas as a transportation renewal underwriter and Brian Bragg as a transportation underwriter. Joe Delaney has been promoted to transportation underwriter.

Deryas previously spent three years as a new business underwriter at Brewer Insurance Group. Bragg has eight years of experience as a commercial underwriting specialist. Delaney joined JM Wilson in 2023 as an assistant transportation underwriter.

Symphony Risk Solutions named Matt Burns president of the firm’s specialty business and tapped him to lead its new office in Austin, Texas.

Burns joins Symphony Risk with 30 years of insurance experience with a primary focus on real estate insurance solutions.

Brown & Riding, headquartered in Dallas, named Wes Benefield to its national management and professional liability practice as senior vice president and broker, D&O, E&O and cyber.

Based in Fort Worth, Benefield has over 11 years of combined retailer, carrier and wholesale experience in the executive lines space. He most recently served as senior wholesale broker at U.S. Risk LLC.

Florida Peninsula Holdings and Windward Holdings, which together own and manage Florida Peninsula Insurance Co., Edison Insurance and Ovation Home Insurance Exchange, has named co-founder Gary Cantor vice chairman of the board. Cantor also serves as chief financial officer at the Boca Raton-based companies.

Risk Strategies named Troy Bagwell commercial lines leader for the West region.

Bagwell is based in Los Angeles and joins Risk Strategies from Panorama Risk & Insurance Solutions, where he was executive vice president and managing director of P/C. He has more than 40 years of industry experience.

Risk Strategies is headquartered in Boston.