People & Places

September 6, 2004

Insurance Journal

Florida-based Bankers Insurance Group announced that Barbara Peat, vice president of corporate marketing and communications, has been promoted to senior vice president and chief marketing officer.

In addition to her current responsibilities, Peat will assume the marketing responsibilities of Kathleen Batson, who is retiring at the end of this year.

Peat has more than 25 years' experience in sales and marketing, and public relations management.

Bankers Insurance Group also promoted vice president, Teresa Heller, to senior vice president and chief administrative officer of their property and casualty companies.

Heller has more than 20 years' experience in the insurance industry, particularly in property and casualty claims management, and in catastrophe operations management. Prior to joining Bankers in 1992, she was a unit claim manager at Allstate Insurance Co.

ACE Westchester Specialty Group, the U.S.-based wholesale focused property and casualty operation of the ACE Group of Companies, has entered the environmental risk market, resulting in the creation of a new environmental division. Based in Atlanta, this new division will offer environmental liability products and services to the wholesale brokerage market.

Leading this new division is Barbara Deas, senior vice president, who will have overall management responsibility.

With more than 35 years of diverse insurance industry experience, Deas joins ACE Westchester Specialty Group from Gulf Insurance Group, where she most recently served as managing vice president of the Environmental Division. She previously served as southeast regional manager with Kemper Environmental and assistant vice president with United Capital's Environmental Division.

ACE Westchester Specialty's Environ-mental Division offers contractors pollution liability and premises pollution liability. In addition, general liability, professional liability and excess liability coverages are available to environmental risks such as environmental contractors and environmental consultants.

The new division will distribute products through wholesale brokerage firms throughout the U.S. The retail brokerage distribution of environmental insurance products will continue to be conducted by ACE USA's Environmental Risk Division.

Georgia's State Board of Workers' Compensation appointed David Imahara, current Appellate Division director, to the position of administrative law judge.

Imahara became the division director for the Alternative Dispute Resolution Division, and at her request, Judge Elizabeth Lammers will be filling the administrative law judge position in the Hearings Division.

Engineering and Fire Investigations (EFI), a member of the GAB Robins Group of Companies, named Ron Holt to the position of chief operating officer.

In this position, Holt will be responsible for the overall field operations of the company and oversee all divisional senior management.

Previously, he served as vice president of EFI's Real Property Services Division, which provides environmental and engineering services for commercial and industrial facilities on a national basis. Prior to joining EFI in 2000, Holt was vice president - Commercial Division, southern region for ENSR International Corp. where he established a national Real Property initiative.

EFI is a full-service engineering, environmental and fire investigations firm serving commercial, industrial, institutional, insurance, government and public and private entities.

Jean M. Lawler, a senior partner at Murchison & Cumming LLP, of California, has been inaugurated as president of the Federation of Defense & Corporate Counsel (FDCC), the first woman to hold this position.

Lawler was first elected to the FDCC Board of Directors in 1996 and will serve as president through July 2005, presiding over the FDCC's winter meeting on Marco Island, Fla., and its annual meeting at La Costa, in California.

Lawler currently serves on the board of directors of the Defense Research Institute (DRI) and Lawyers for Civil Justice (LCJ). She is a former director of the Association of Southern California Defense Counsel (ASCDC).

She is a frequent lecturer and author of articles pertaining to insurance issues. In November, she will speak at the DRI's "International Liability - New Theories of Liability from the USA" programs held in Sydney and Melbourne, Australia. Within the past year, she has spoken at conferences sponsored by Property Loss Research Bureau (PLRB), USLAW Network, and the Excess/Surplus Lines Claims Association.

As chair of Murchison & Cumming's Insurance Law & Risk Management Practice Group, Lawler handles complex insurance and bad faith litigation, insurance coverage matters and provides underwriting and risk management advice.

The FDCC is an international organization whose more than 1,300 members include attorneys who specialize in the defense of civil litigation, general counsel, risk managers and insurance claims executives.

Markel Corp. appointed J. Ruffin Branham Jr. as the next president of Markel Re.

Ruffin is a 35-year veteran of the industry. He began his career with Aetna C&S, and held leadership roles at Johnson & Higgins for 24 years.

Most recently, Ruffin was with Palmer & Cay, headquartered in Savannah, Ga.