Business Moves

Chubb Launches North America Small Commercial Insurance Division

Chubb announced the launch of its Small Commercial Insurance division for North America.

The division brings together a team of product and service professionals to provide a broad range of management and professional liability and standard insurance coverages for small businesses with annual revenues up to $10 million. Chubb Small Commercial Insurance, which already has a robust offering of financial lines solutions, will release innovative insurance products, including an enhanced business owner policy (BOP) and supporting umbrella in the U.S. later in 2016, to serve independent agents and brokers and their small business clients.

As previously announced, Jim Williamson is president of the new division and will report to Paul J. Krump, president, North American Commercial and Personal Lines. Prior to ACE’s acquisition of Chubb in January 2016, Williamson was division president of ACE Private Risk Services.

The following division leaders will report to Williamson:

• Michelle Middleton will serve as chief operating officer. She was previously Eastern Territory Underwriting Center Branch manager and senior vice president, Chubb & Son, and held a variety of other leadership roles with Chubb for nearly 30 years. Reporting to Middleton are:
  -Carla Owens will be the Financial and Professional Lines leader. Previously, she served as vice president, Small Business Solutions Program manager, Chubb Specialty. She has 15 years of industry experience.
  -Michelle Shaver will be the Business Owner Policy (BOP) Product leader. She previously was senior vice president-Commercial Risk Services, ACE Limited, and has more than 25 years of insurance experience.
• B.C. Verniero will lead Platform Development. He formerly was senior vice president, Chubb & Son, and senior manager for Business Partner Services, IT Strategy and Operations. He has more than 30 years of insurance industry experience.
• Jon Farber will be Technology and Life Sciences Product leader. He previously served as senior vice president of Technology and Life Sciences, ACE Limited, and has more than 25 years of insurance experience. Reporting to Farber is:
  -Patrick Thielen will be Cyber Product leader and will support product and underwriting initiatives in Technology and Life Sciences. Previously, he served as vice president, Technology and Life Sciences Underwriting, ACE Limited. He has nearly 15 years of insurance experience.
• Jay Weber will serve as head of Sales. He joined Chubb from The Hartford, where he held multiple sales, product and distribution leadership roles. Before that, he served in several small commercial roles with Travelers.
• Dean Brown will head up Analytics and Marketing. He most recently served as vice president, Business Analytics, ACE Private Risk Services, and has prior industry experience with Aon and Deloitte Consulting.
• Tom Van Pelt will be division Finance officer. He previously was Division Finance officer, Chubb Global Accident & Health, and has been with Chubb for nearly 15 years.
• Jim Healey will lead the Actuarial department. He most recently managed Chubb’s Corporate Catastrophe modeling unit, and has nearly 15 years of insurance industry experience in a variety of actuarial pricing, predictive modeling and catastrophe modeling roles.
• Charles Silla will be head of Human Resources. He most recently was senior vice president, Human Resources, ACE Limited.

ISO Annouces Drone Insurance Coverage Options for Commercial Inland Marine Market

ISO has released new inland marine insurance forms to help protect businesses from the costs of drone crashes, including damage to the drones, equipment and cargo.

The new ISO forms provide insurers with underwriting tools to address commercial drones, which have developed a wide range of potential and reported uses, including package delivery, crop protection and aerial photography. The new coverage options allow for drones to be covered under a stand-alone coverage form or by endorsement to some ISO commercial inland marine classes.

In addition, ISO has introduced a comprehensive advisory application, sample instructions that provide details on some coverage features of the new ISO forms, general underwriting considerations to help evaluate related property drone risks and loss control recommendations to aid in the mitigation of potential exposures.

These options come less than a year after ISO’s commercial drone liability coverage and exclusion options took effect in most ISO jurisdictions for ISO’s Commercial General Liability and Commercial Liability Umbrella/Excess programs.Options are available to address a number of potential exposures with respect to bodily injury, property damage and other potential liability related to drones.

To learn more about ISO’s drone insurance options, visit www.iso.com/drones.