Executives On The Move at GEICO, Great American, Ironshore and Markel

Great American Insurance Group hired three new executives for its Singapore branch. GEICO promoted two executives in its general council and claims divisions. Markel International named a new executive to help lead its entry into the Indian market. Ironshore International gave one of its executives some additional responsibilities.

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Great American Insurance Group hired three executives to fill three key roles in its Singapore branch.

• Larry Kwok will serve as appointed Director, Marine (North Asia Market), with a mission to handle strategic management of marine underwriting and portfolio management within the North Asia market. He’ll also help lead the business toward its growth objectives within Asia. Kwok has 18 years of experience in the insurance industry in various senior underwriting and management roles, with a specialty focus on marine insurance classes.
• Linda Tan will serve as appointed Director, Marine, tasked with the strategic management of marine underwriting and portfolio management within Asia. As well, she’ll assist in leading the business toward its growth objectives within Asia. Tan is a 20-year insurance industry veteran, with practical expertise in underwriting, servicing, broking and marketing of marine and non-marine insurance products, along with regional account management for facultative and treaty business.
• Donovan Lam will serve as appointed Senior Manager, marine and Casualty Claims, and will oversee the claims management of all marine and casualty classes of business to drive best practices and deliver superior claims service to clients. He has over 27 years of extensive experience in marine claims.

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GEICO promoted two executives to new roles with the property/casualty insurer.

• Hank Nayden is GEICO’s new vice president, general and legislate counsel at the company’s Chevy Chase, Md. corporate headquarters. In his new role, Nayden will oversee GEICO’s general counsel’s office but also still run its office of legislative counsel, a position he has had since 2000. Nayden first joined GEICO as an attorney in the legislative counsel’s office.
• Angela Rinella was named vice president of GEICO’s claims operations and will be based in Chevy Chase. She started working for GEICO in 2002 as a telephone claims representative and helped launch GEICO’s regional claims center in Buffalo, N.Y. in 2004. Since then, she’s held management roles of increasing responsibility in Florida and Virgina, most recently as assistant vice president of claims in GEICO’s Fredericksburg, Va. Regional office.

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Ironshore International appointed Krishnan Ethirajan to serve in the additional role as Chief Operating Officer of Ironshore International.

Ethirajan currently is the Chief Operations Officer of IronServe Inc., a global operations unit delivering a range of specialized underwriting, finance and technological support throughout Ironshore’s platform worldwide. He will retain his IronServe role as part of and in addition to Ironshore International chief operating officer.

Prior to joining Ironshore in 2012, Ethirajan was Insurance Sector Leader for the services and operations practice with PricewaterhouseCoopers. Previously, he has served in various management positions with Allstate Insurance and is credited with establishing the Global Sourcing Office responsible for executing its operational transformation program. His professional career also includes his tenure with Gartner, managing the Asia and Central U.S. consulting group.

Ethirajan was recently appointed an Executive Director of Ironshore regulated entities PMA and IEDAC.

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Specialist insurer Markel International appointed Deepika Mathur to lead its entry into the Indian market.

Mathur has some 20 years’ experience of working in the Indian insurance industry. Most recently she was executive vice president at HDFC Ergo, the Indian/German joint venture general insurance company, with responsibility for the casualty and financial lines business. She was also responsible for the successful launch of a number of specialty insurance products and for the company’s entry into the trade credit class. Earlier positions included four years as head of financial products for Marsh in India.

For Markel’s India market effort, capacity will be provided by Markel’s Syndicate 3000 at Lloyd’s and business will be written through the Lloyd’s India platform, based in Mumbai. The business will be subject to approval from Lloyd’s and from the regulatory authorities in India.

Markel India will focus initially on providing treaty and facultative reinsurance to local Indian insurers, in a broad range of commercial classes, including casualty, financial lines, as well as contingency, event, personal accident, trade credit, and marine and energy, said Markel International in a statement.

Sources: GEICO, Great American Insurance Group, Markel International Ltd.