Executives on the Move at Zurich NA, Trium, EMC

January 23, 2023

Zurich North America made two promotions in its U.S. National Accounts business as it focuses on “delivering holistic, customer-led risk management solutions for corporate customers and their brokers.”

Both will report to Paul Lavelle, head of U.S. National Accounts.

Brian Winters, previously head of Large Casualty, will take on the new role of head of U.S. National Accounts Broker Execution.

Winters has more than 35 years of experience in insurance, 15 of them with Zurich. He has held key roles in sales and distribution, casualty and wholesale, specialty lines, customer management and more. He earlier worked at XL Insurance Global Risk.

“Brian is well respected as a very strong relationship-builder among our customers and brokers,” said Lavelle. “We want to use that experience across National Accounts and Zurich North America.”

Succeeding Winters as head of Large Casualty is Bill Chepulis, previously head of Underwriting for U.S. National Accounts.

Chepulis has been with Zurich for 17 years in a variety of key roles in commercial insurance, distribution and regional management, and planning and performance. He earlier held roles in finance at Navistar and Kemper Insurance.

“Bill’s technical strengths and depth of knowledge will be tremendously valuable as he oversees the Large Casualty book of new and renewal business,” Lavelle said.

Zurich said the Head of National Accounts Underwriting role will be posted.

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Trium Cyber, a Lloyd’s of London cyber insurance specialist, has appointed David Rock as chief claims officer of its U.S.-based services company.

Rock and the Trium management team are based in the United States, focused on servicing the U.S. market.

The announcement was made by Josh Ladeau, CEO of the newly formed operation, who called Rock “a tremendous asset and one of the industry’s foremost experts in adjudicating cyber matters.”

Rock comes to Trium from Allied World, where he most recently served as North American head of Cyber and E&O Claims. In addition to creating and managing Allied World’s cyber response practice, he had broad oversight for all professional lines claims.

Rock earned his JD from Western New England University’s School of Law, where he served as an editor on the Law Review. He earned his BA in political science at Grand Canyon University while serving as an intern for then U.S. Senator Jon Kyl.

Rock is a member of the NetDiligence-Cyber Claims Advisory Group, Claims Litigation Management (CLM), the American Bar Association, the Defense Research Institute (DRI), and the International Association of Privacy Professionals (CIPP/US).

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EMC Insurance Companies has named Pavan Goteti as the new vice president of Innovation and Business Process Management, a newly expanded role focused on enabling the people, processes and technology necessary to achieve EMC’s future-focused strategy.

Goteti brings two decades of experience in the insurance industry delivering strategic and transformational initiatives that drive process efficiencies and promote operational excellence, most recently in an assistant vice president position at EMC. He joined EMC in December 2017 as a senior scrum master and quickly advanced to assistant vice president – Agile Delivery Enablement.

“Goteti’s expertise and ability to build strong partnerships between business and technology leaders will be critical as our company works through its digital transformation,” said Beth Nigut, executive vice president at EMC. “We strive to be intentional and strategic about building a culture of innovation, which includes embracing cross-functional collaboration. Goteti’s focus on relationships ensures that innovation occurs everywhere within the organization and encompasses big and small improvements – all of which are designed to yield a better customer experience.”