People News: CSAA, AIG, Travelers

Ingersoll Named VP of Corporate Innovation at CSAA

John Ingersoll has been named VP of Corporate Innovation at CSAA Insurance Group. Ingersoll is among the inaugural Velocity Program at the company, a “growth engine” that brings employees from various business lines together for six months to learn agile thinking and to take entrepreneurial approaches to generating business ideas.

Ingersoll joined CSAA Insurance Group as its brand marketing executive in 2013. He led the work to provide better insights into customers’ experience with the company, and to use that data to improve products and service and deliver better tools for serving AAA members.

AIG Names Former Zurich Exec SVP, Deputy Chief Financial Officer and Chief Accounting Officer

American International Group, Inc. appointed Jonathan Wismer senior vice president, deputy chief financial officer and chief accounting officer, effective immediately.

He will be based in New York and report to Sid Sankaran, executive vice president and chief financial officer. He succeeds Elias Habayeb, who was appointed chief financial officer for General Insurance in May.

Wismer brings to this position a strong track record in financial leadership roles at Fortune 100 international insurance companies, with particular focus on the property/casualty business. More recently he served as Group Controller for Zurich Insurance Group, based in Zurich, Switzerland, and he previously spent nine years at Liberty Mutual, culminating with his appointment as senior vice president & chief financial officer, Liberty International. He also held senior financial and regulatory reporting leadership positions at Allianz Group in Munich, Germany and previously worked at KPMG, where he began his career.

Benet to Step Down as CFO of Travelers, Frey to Assume Role

The Travelers Companies announced that, effective Sept. 1, Jay S. Benet will step down from his role as chief financial officer, a position he has held since 2002. Benet will remain on the senior leadership team as vice chairman.

Daniel S. Frey will succeed Benet and become executive vice president and chief financial officer, effective Sept. 1. Frey currently serves as chief financial officer of the company’s Personal Insurance segment, having served in a number of other key financial management roles across Travelers over the past 15 years.

Frey brings to his new role more than three decades of finance and accounting experience. Prior to his current role, Frey served as chief financial officer of the company’s Claim and Field Management organizations. Before joining Travelers, he served as chief financial officer of Spalding Sports Worldwide.

As vice chairman, Benet will support the transition to Frey for a period of time and then take on a variety of responsibilities, including serving as a strategic advisor to the rest of the Travelers senior leadership team.