Moves and Views

Moves and Views

1 Crawford & Company (Canada) Inc. recently announced that Pat Van Bakel [1a] is its new CEO, replacing John Sharoun [1b]. Van Bakel, a claims adjuster who was appointed Crawford Canada’s chief operating officer (COO) in 2012, has been with the company for more than 20 years. Before being named COO, he was senior vice president of operations, insurer markets. Van Bakel is a Chartered Insurance Professional and incoming deputy president of the Governing Council of the Insurance Institute of Ontario. Sharoun, for his part, has been named CEO of specialty markets for the Americas at Crawford & Company. Its specialty markets include energy, marine, aviation, forensic accounting and mining specialty services.

2 Shawn DeSantis [2] was recently appointed president and chief executive officer of Jones DesLauriers Insurance Management Inc., a Toronto-based independent brokerage. DeSantis had been executive vice president of RSA Insurance. While at RSA Canada, DeSantis led a number of major acquisitions for the company. RSA Canada has divided the responsibilities for personal lines, small medium enterprise and global specialty lines. Effective July 1, Donna Ince is senior vice president of personal and commercial insurance and Martin Thompson is senior vice president of global specialty lines.

3 Chicago-based Hub International Ltd. announced in July that it has acquired The Dorsey Group Inc. of Brantford, Ontario and Southeastern Insurance Services Ltd. of Steinbach, Manitoba. Hub reports its acquisition of Dorsey Group “will expand Hub’s footprint” by adding new offices in Brantford and Simcoe in southern Ontario. President Paula Dorsey [3], a daughter of the brokerage’s founders, will become vice president of Hub Ontario. Her brother, Gary Dorsey, “will continue to work with the business in the same consulting/mentoring capacity as he has for the past couple of years,” says a spokesperson for Hub. Southeastern Insurance’s operations will become part of Hub Horizon in Manitoba. Jack Rempel, son of Southeastern founder Arnold Rempel, has retired as president.

4 Three Canadian property and casualty insurance carriers are now offering eDocs capability to their broker partners.

Economical Insurance of Waterloo, Ontario has made eDocs an option for its broker partners across Canada that are using the Deltek, Epic, Power Broker, sigXP, The Agency Manager (TAM) and The Broker’s Workstation (TBW) broker management systems (BMSs). Brokers can choose to receive electronic copies of declarations in the Centre for Study of Insurance Operations’ (CSIO) XML format in their daily download. Portage Mutual Insurance of Portage La Prairie, Manitoba is offering eDocs to brokers using PowerBroker, SigXP, TAM and TBW. Its brokers can fully automate the retrieval of home and auto electronic declaration pages, eliminating the need to fax, scan or courier the documents. CSIO XML eDocs are also available for Aviva Canada’s broker partners using Keal Technology’s sigXP BMS. Aviva broker partners can now automate the retrieval and download of personal lines electronic declaration pages, Keal reports. The system Keal built for Aviva creates a historical record for each eDocs transaction against which brokers can search, report or audit, meaning there is no need to gather policy documents from a carrier website or receive physical paper from an insurance company.

5 Burns & Wilcox Canada has welcomed former Jones Brown Inc. executive Alex Boyd [5a] to lead its Calgary office. A former vice president at Marsh Canada, Boyd has more than 20 years of commercial insurance industry experience specializing in mid-market oil and gas exploration, well control and executive risk coverage. Formerly, he was a senior account executive at Jones Brown and a vice president of Willis Group. Also at Burns & Wilcox Canada, Maia Espejo [5b] has been hired as a senior professional liability manager working out of Toronto.

Espejo is a former senior underwriter for management liability at Creechurch International Underwriters, and has also worked as an underwriter at Travelers Insurance Company of Canada.

6 CARSTAR Collision & Glass Centres’ charitable car wash campaigns have raised $2 million for Cystic Fibrosis Canada in the last decade. “I am incredibly proud to see what started as a small grassroots campaign, grow to become a 10-year, $2-million fundraising success story,” says company COO Michael Macaluso [6]. “Finding a cure for Cystic Fibrosis (CF) is a mission for CARSTAR and I am so proud of our franchise partners, vendor sponsors, volunteers and Canadians who have contributed,” Macaluso adds. The campaign began after Victoria Whitaker, a granddaughter of a CARSTAR franchise owner, was diagnosed with CF.

7 Stephen Scullion [7] is Granite Claims Solutions’ new senior adjuster and manager of its branch in Kitchener-Waterloo, Ontario. Formerly director of professional development at Crawford & Company (Canada) Inc., Scullion has more than 27 years of insurance experience, “having held both adjusting and leadership roles with national, independent adjusting firms,” Granite Claims notes in a statement.

His areas of expertise include commercial property, liability, business interruption and professional claims training.

8 Insurance wholesaler Affiliated Brokers Exchange Ltd. (ABEX) has teamed up with Insurance Technology Solutions Inc.

(ITS) to offer a new policy administration system that allows for, among other things, paperless policy issuance. The system enables brokers to provide “real-time quotes in minutes,” for both personal and commercial lines clients, notes ABEX, a managing general agent in Waterloo, Ontario that provides niche products and insurance offerings. A secure web portal allows brokers to make coverage changes, update policy information and fill out new applications for coverage using ITS’s BindEasy Solution. Brokers can also use the system on mobile devices, including Apple Inc.’s iPad and iPhone, and smartphones and tablets using both Windows and Google Inc.’s Android operating system.

9 Perry Hughes has joined Catlin Canada as head of multi-lines. Hughes has held various management roles with “some of Canada’s largest insurance carriers,” notes Catlin Canada. The company is comprised of the Canadian operations of Bermuda-based commercial carrier Catlin Group Ltd.

10 Crawford & Company (Canada) Inc. announced that the management and adjusting team of Horizon Adjusters Ltd., based in Grande Prairie, Alberta, will join Crawford Canada, effective August 1. “Horizon’s president, Bea Boutcher, brings with her a team of five all-lines adjusters and a knowledgeable support staff team,” notes a press release from Crawford Canada. “This move is in line with our growth strategy in Western Canada and helps to complete our coverage and network in the region,” says Crawford Canada CEO Pat Van Bakel.