|
|
|
|
|
|
Speakers
|
 Jeff Bemis is SECURA Insurance Companies’ chief information officer and vice president of Information technology. Prior to this position, Bemis served as the vice president of personal lines underwriting for five years. He also was director of IT-software application development for six years. Before joining SECURA, Bemis was the director of underwriting at American Express Property Casualty Insurance Company. He has more than 30 years experience in the property casualty insurance industry.
 Karlyn Carnahan is a principal in Novarica's insurance practice, focused on claims, distribution, and IT planning. She is the primary researcher and author of the market leading reports on claims core systems, reinsurance, and Web 2.0 and is a widely recognized expert on these topics who has presented at numerous conferences and conducted numerous vendor selection projects for U.S. insurers. Before joining Novarica, Carnahan was vice president of marketing for Fireman's Fund commercial lines division.
 Ellen Carney is a senior analyst serving insurance eBusiness & channel strategy professionals at Forrester Research. Her research focuses on the eBusiness strategies, technologies, adoption trends, and best practices of property casualty, life, group, and health insurers globally. Carney brings nearly 20 years of experience in delivering technical and professional services to clients in a variety of industries and markets. She joins Forrester from ThruPoint, a New York-based professional services firm.
 Chandler Cox, Jr. is president and chief executive officer of American Mining Insurance Company. Cox started his insurance career in 1979 as a facultative underwriter for General Reinsurance Corporation in their Chicago branch. He then moved to Birmingham, Ala. in 1981 to become vice president, underwriting for MGA underwriting mining risks on behalf of several insurance companies. In 1985, Cox founded Mining Insurance Markets, a wholesale insurance brokerage firm specializing in mining operations. In 1989, he co-founded American Mining Insurance Company.
 Tracy Feger has served as manager of web development and usability for COUNTRY Financial® since March 2000. Feger is responsible for digital marketing solutions, including social media, online brand integration, digital advertising, corporate sites, representative sites, intranet, search engine optimization and success metrics. She oversees interface designers, usability engineers and front-end developers. Feger joined COUNTRY in 1984 as a senior print designer in the advertising and marketing division.
 David Firstenberg currently serves as president and chief executive officer of Canal Insurance Company, Canal Indemnity Company and the Wm. R. Timmons Agency, LLC. Prior to joining Canal, Firstenberg was president, commercial lines for the Hanover Group in Worcester, Mass. He has also served in executive positions at One Beacon Insurance Group, Zenith National and Chubb.
 Michael Fitzgerald, CPCU, is a senior analyst in Celent's insurance practice with specific expertise in property casualty automation, operations management and insurance product development. His research focuses on billing, business process and operations, social media use in insurance, and distribution management. Prior to joining Celent, Fitzgerald was vice president of enterprise underwriting solutions at Zurich North America, where he led the evaluation of technology alternatives to support a new underwriting product development process.
 Jill A. Fochs is a senior marketing manager for Ameriprise Auto & Home Insurance. She has worked in marketing for 15 years. Prior to that she worked for American Express. She has vast experience in multi-channel prospect and client marketing and was recently responsible for launching Ameriprise’s social media efforts.
 Sam Harrison has successfully pitched his concepts and ideas to dozens of clients and associates, including NFL, Major League Baseball, Hallmark, Hasbro, American Express and John Denver Environmental Groups. Harrison has more than 20 years of marketing and brand communications experience in agency, corporate and consulting roles. He was also a senior vice president of branding, marketing and creative services with an S&P 500 firm.
 Joel Jackson is the vice president of marketing for Pekin Insurance. He oversees all functions of the marketing department, which includes all corporate advertising, co-op advertising, coordination of incentive trips, and administration of agency contracts and licensing. Jackson began his career with Pekin Insurance in 1990 as an instructor in the training department. He then spent eight years in the sales department as a field manager before transferring back to the home office in the marketing department.
 Charlie Kingdollar is a vice president and leads GenRe's emerging issues unit contained in the treaty division of General Re. He is responsible for tracking and analyzing developments that create new or changing exposures, and assessing their potential impact on property casualty insurance industry. Kingdollar regularly consults with clients on both the impact of emerging issues and the underwriting actions insurers may wish to implement to address these exposures.
 Susan Kleinman is a director at comScore, Inc. where she manages the insurance practice, including auto, homeowner, renter, and life insurance. In this role, Kleinman provides competitive intelligence on all facets of insurance companies’ online activity, from search and display advertising to online quoting, purchasing, and servicing. Her expertise is helping Fortune 500 companies maximize ROI by transforming market research data into actionable insights that enable fact-based decisions.
 Elizabeth Kramer is the business development specialist for Commercial Umbrella and Personal Umbrella for GenRe, which includes client and product management and new business development. She is also an account executive for the Mid-Atlantic region and is responsible for the marketing of various Treaty lines, including Commercial and Personal Umbrella and Employment Practices Liability. Prior to joining Treaty in 2001, Liz was the Casualty Facultative manager for the Gen Re Tokyo office and spent a number of years as an underwriter and account executive in the New York region.
 Jeffrey Kucera, FCAS, MAAA, is a senior consultant with Towers Watson. He has more than 35 years of experience in the property casualty insurance industry, having worked most recently at EMB after a 24-year career at Allstate Insurance Company. Kucera’s areas of expertise include ratemaking, class plans and product development primarily in the homeowners’ line. He has held leadership roles in a number of industry and professional committees.
 Maribeth Kuzmeski is president of the consulting firm, Red Zone Marketing, Inc founded in 1994. Kuzmeski and her firm personally consult some of the nation’s top financial advisors managing from $250 million to over $1 billion in client assets. She also works with broker dealers and insurance companies on strategic marketing planning, recruiting, and business growth. Kuzmeski has written 5 books including the bestsellers “…And The Clients Went Wild!” (Wiley, 2010) and “The Connectors” (Wiley, 2009).
 Thomas F. Mulligan has been president and chief executive office of Western World Insurance Group since January 1, 2010. The Western World Insurance Group companies specialize in commercial general liability, professional liability and commercial auto insurance coverages. The Group carries the A+ (Superior) rating from the A.M. Best Company and in 2010 had revenues of $217 million, assets of $1.3 billion, and shareholders’ equity of $391 million.
 Timothy A. Reinhold, Ph.D. is senior vice president of research and chief engineer at the Institute for Business and Home Safety (IBHS). Named as an Engineering News-Record Top 25 Newsmaker in 2010 for creating the IBHS Research Center, Dr. Reinhold is well respected for helping to build stronger, safer, more resilient structures of all kinds. Dr. Reinhold joined IBHS in 2004 as director of engineering and vice president after 12 years with Clemson University where he was a professor of Civil Engineering.
 Stephen Russell is chief actuary with American Modern Insurance Group. Russell has almost 30 years of experience and joined American Modern after holding diverse positions in the insurance industry in which he was responsible for pricing, product development, reserving, reinsurance brokering and catastrophe management. Before joining American Modern, he was a vice president for Aon Benfield, was chief actuary at Vesta Insurance Group, and a director at Allstate Insurance Company. He is a member of the American Academy of Actuaries and an Associate of the Casualty Actuarial Society.
 Nort Salz has more than 30 years' experience as an executive and consultant. He has worked with executives and teams at all levels in leading and managing change, decision-making, operations improvement, and team and individual development. Since 2002 Salz has concentrated exclusively on helping property and casualty carriers achieve their goals through implementing the Deep Customer Connections value proposition: If you make it easier for your agents to place more business with you, they will.
 David A. Sampson is the president and chief executive officer for the Property Casualty Insurers Association of America (PCI). Before joining PCI, Sampson worked with President George W. Bush and served the Bush administration as deputy secretary of the U.S. Commerce Department. He was also a member of President Bush’s Management Council.
 Bill Simon is the digital marketing director for American Family Mutual Insurance Company. Simon has been with American Family for over 30 years. He started out of college as a property casualty underwriter, worked 15 years in the IT division and joined Marketing in 1997 as their field automation director. In 2009 Simon became the digital marketing director.
 Christopher Sirota, CPCU, is product development and research manager in the Insurance Services Office, Inc. (ISO) applied informatix business unit. The unit’s mission is to gather and analyze data from installed telematics equipment in private passenger and commercial vehicles. Sirota started at ISO in 1999 as an insurance lines analyst in the personal lines division where he was responsible for personal auto forms, rules, and loss cost filings. He also did research leading to implementation of revised personal auto territory definitions based on ZIP code.
 Cherilyn Hardman-Sytar has served as vice president of marketing for COUNTRY Financial® since April 2006. Hardman-Sytar is responsible for all marketing functions, including advertising, sales promotion, lead generation, marketing projects, training and agency management development. She also is responsible for coordination of alliance marketing and branding. Hardman-Sytar joined COUNTRY in 1972 in COUNTRY Mutual customer accounting. She has since served in several supervisory and management positions in underwriting and marketing.
 Robert Walling is a principal and consulting actuary with Pinnacle Actuarial Resources, Inc. and has been in the insurance industry since 1989, consulting since 1997. Walling is focused on commercial lines ratemaking and product development, studies for self-insureds and captives, commercial lines loss reserving, legislative costing, litigation support and regulatory assistance. He is a Fellow of the Casualty Actuarial Society (FCAS) and a member of the American Academy of Actuaries (MAAA). Walling has served the Casualty Actuarial Society (CAS) as chairman of the Ratemaking Seminar Committee, the Risk and Capital Management Seminar Committee and the New Fellows Committee.
 Joseph H. Wehrle, Jr., is the president and chief executive officer of the National Insurance Crime Bureau (NICB). From 2003 – 2007, Wehrle was senior vice president, then president of USAA Property and Casualty Insurance Group. As president of USAA, Wehrle led nearly 11,000 employees located in six national and two international locations serving over five million members. Wehrle completed a distinguished 33-year career in the United States Air Force having risen to the rank of lieutenant general. He served in various leadership positions with the U.S. Air Force and retired in 2003 as the Air Force assistant vice chief of staff.
 Steven N. Weisbart, Ph.D., CLU, is senior vice president and chief economist for the Insurance Information Institute. Dr. Weisbart oversees the Institute’s program of economic research and analysis, preparing studies in support of the organization’s communications mission, speaking to media and conducting briefings for member companies, industry organizations and public policymakers. Since joining the I.I.I. in 2005, Dr. Weisbart has authored several significant research papers and articles on a variety of insurance issues, including the threat of an avian flu pandemic and the effect of the aging U.S. population on the property/casualty insurance industry.
 Edward Yorty is president and chief executive officer of Pharmacists Mutual Insurance Company. Prior to joining Pharmacists Mutual in 2011, he spent 15 years working for mutual insurance companies. Most recently, Yorty served as chief financial officer for Oregon Mutual Insurance. January of this year, he assumed the position of chief executive officer, upon the retirement of the previous CEO, Ed Berg. Yorty was elected to the Board of Directors in 2011 and serves as chair of the Corporate Planning committee.
|
|
|
|
