We have executive appointments and promotions to tell you about at XL Catlin, Hiscox, ACORD, Measure and Berkshire Hathaway Specialty Insurance:

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XL Catlin has appointed its post-merger specialty insurance leadership in its newly created Americas region. Specifically, the appointments cover regional insurance product areas including accident & health, aviation, crisis management, equine & livestock, fine art & specie, marine and political risk & trade credit.

XL and Catlin completed their merger earlier this year. The carrier’s new specialty product leads in the Americas include:

• Jason Denechaud – accident & health. He’ll continue to manage XL Catlin’s accident & health underwriting team, which provides tailored group accident insurance solutions for a wide range of programs and groups including associations, affinity groups, student travel groups, unions and others.
• Eric Donofrio – aviation. Donofrio will oversee aviation insurance underwriting teams in New York, Boston, Chicago, and San Francisco in the US, Toronto and Calgary in Canada, providing aviation hull & liability, aircraft products liability, non-owned aircraft liability among other coverages.
• Denise Balan – crisis management. She will lead XL Catlin’s crisis management underwriting teams in New York, Atlanta and Boston, as well as managing relationships with global risk management consultants, to provide corporate clients with product recall, war, terrorism and political violence, kidnap, ransom, and extortion insurance and risk consultancy services.
• Sheila Gott – equine & livestock. Gott will manage XL Catlin’s Lexington, Kentucky and New York-based equine teams which underwrite various classes of equine business, including mortality, named perils, theft, prospective foal, barrenness, stallion first season infertility, along with livestock insurance which includes such coverages as livestock mortality, specified perils, transit motor truck cargo and care, custody & control liability.
• Jennifer Schipf – fine art & specie. Schipf continues to oversee fine art, jewelers block and general specie insurance business, while serving as head of U.S. specialty distribution & network (D&N) and is responsible for creating a more cohesive approach to specialty distribution and new business development efforts.
• Richard DeSimone – marine. DeSimone continues to lead XL Catlin’s ocean and inland marine business in the Americas, providing marine cargo, primary and excess marine liability, inland marine, blue water and brown water hull, as well as recreational marine coverages.
• Rafael Docavo-Malvezzi – political risk & trade credit. Docavo-Malvezzi assumes the role of Americas regional product lead for political risk and trade credit (PRTC) in addition to his role as head of global PRTC risk management. His team provides insurance coverages to protect clients against confiscation, expropriation, nationalization, political violence, contract frustration among other risks.

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Hiscox merged its Bermuda and London Market casualty reinsurance teams and named Nick Pascall to lead it.

The new division, operating under the Hiscox Re brand, and led by Pascall as head of casualty reinsurance, controls a combined portfolio of US$50 million gross written premiums across a wide range of casualty reinsurance products.

With business written out of both London through Hiscox’s Syndicate 33 and Bermuda through Syndicate 3624, the division writes a wide range of products including medical malpractice, general liability, excess and umbrella casualty, D&O, E&O and auto liability.

Pascall joined Hiscox in 2013 from American Safety Re (Bermuda) where he was chief underwriting officer. In his new role Pascall will be based in London where he will be supported by senior casualty treaty underwriter Ciaran Mulcahy. Sharmini Samuels, who has been promoted to vice president, will continue to underwrite the account out of Bermuda.

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Bill Hartnett, former head of financial services at Microsoft, has been named head of innovation at ACORD.

ACORD, the non-profit global insurance standards and services organization, said that Hartnett will spearhead initiatives designed to bring new ways of thinking and doing business to the organization and the overall industry.

Hartnett spent nearly 20 years as Microsoft’s top executive in financial services, expanding its presence in the insurance verticle.

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Measure, a company that helps make commercial drones functional for business customers, has hired on a former USAA insurance executive in a leadership role.

Kathleen “Kat” Swain will be Measure’s vice president of insurance. Her job, in part, will be to help insurance companies find ways to use drones to enhance their claims and underwriting operations.

At USAA, Swain was an innovation advisor, where she lead the research and development program for drones. She also developed and launched several strategic initiatives for the company, and has previous experience as an insurance claims arbitrator and manager.

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Berkshire Hathaway Specialty Insurance appointed Chaman Aggarwal as vice president, property underwriting officer.

Previously, he was an executive with XL Catlin Canada. He also has had leadership roles at Marsh and Liberty International Underwriters. He brings to BHSI more than 35 years of property underwriting and engineering experience.

He’ll be based in BHSI’s Toronto office.

Sources: XL Catlin, Hiscox, Berkshire Hathaway Specialty Insurance, ACORD, and Measure.