ACE USA Restructures Global Property Division

PHILADELPHIA--(BUSINESS WIRE)--ACE USA, the U.S.-based retail operating division of The ACE Group, today announced a reorganization within the company’s Global Property division. The division will now include three property insurance units designed to serve the needs of domestic and multinational businesses. The Commercial Property, Specialty Catastrophe, and Complex Multinational Property units report directly to Paul McNamee, Division President, ACE Property and Specialty, North America.

The Commercial Property unit focuses on the risk transfer needs of domestic and multinational clients nationwide. Through nine regional offices across the United States, this group provides significant risk and catastrophe capacity to a broad range of clients in both industry and scale. This unit focuses on the distribution of our core property products through our retail distribution partners across the country. Brian Church, Senior Vice President, has been promoted to lead the Division’s Commercial Property Unit on a nationwide basis.

ACE’s Specialty Catastrophe unit focuses on solutions for clients where traditional property insurance doesn’t match their unique needs or where deductibles levels have exceeded the client’s appetite for risk, often brought about through significant losses or changes in industry models. Using innovative design to maximize catastrophe protection and minimize the impact of market cycles for customers, products are developed with a client focus. These products range from flood reinstatement protection to named storm deductible buy downs, multi-year agreements, and parametric triggered coverage for concentrated catastrophe exposure. Jeremiah Konz, Senior Vice President, will lead the Specialty Catastrophe group, in addition to his current role as Senior Vice President, Ceded Reinsurance, where he is the lead buyer of reinsurance for ACE’s Property and Specialty division in North America.

The Complex Multinational Property unit provides specialized fronting and captive solutions to large multinational customers and offers an experienced team of professionals with multinational expertise, superior technical program design, competitive fronting service fees, and competitive credit terms where applicable. ACE’s secure, web-based Worldview^SM client portal is used to implement, service, and manage multinational programs across a global network of owned offices in 54 countries and partner companies in 126 countries. Eric Stoer, Senior Vice President, will continue to head the Complex Multinational Property Unit.

“The restructuring of the property division into these three units underscores ACE’s commitment to provide customers and brokers with a broad range of specialty products and services. Brian, Jeremiah and Eric have been instrumental in the development and execution of our property strategies across North America, and are well positioned to bring all of ACE’s resources to bear for customers and brokers through this new structure,” said Mr. McNamee.

In his eight years with ACE, Mr. Church has held various positions of increasing responsibility in underwriting and executive management. Most recently he was responsible for overseeing the Eastern Zone Property operations encompassing the Northeast, New York, Mid-Atlantic, and Southeast regions. Prior to joining ACE, he held underwriting positions with other large global carriers. Mr. Church will continue to be based in New York City.

Mr. Konz joined ACE in June 2012. With 13 years of technical property catastrophe expertise, he is able to utilize his analytics background in reinsurance to lead the underwriting and new product development in the Specialty Catastrophe Unit. Mr. Konz will be based in Eden Prairie, Minn.

Mr. Stoer has more than 16 years of experience in the global property and marine arena, having joined ACE in 2006. Prior to his current role, he most recently served as Vice President, Global Account Manager for ACE USA Property and Specialty Lines. Prior to joining ACE, Mr. Stoer focused on global and national business for retail and wholesale brokers in his role as an underwriting team manager for a global insurance company, and as global property & foreign casualty broker and account manager for a global broker, based in New York City. He also served as an account team manager at a national marine claims adjusting company. Mr. Stoer will continue to be based in New York City.

ACE Property and Specialty Lines Division, part of North America Property, offers comprehensive management solutions for the property, marine, inland marine, energy and aviation insurance needs of U.S.-based companies, ranging from mid-size domestic to large multinational, as well as provide customized fee-for-service engineering consulting for long-term client loss control solutions. North America Property & Specialty is comprised of ACE’s property-related products and services cross the company’s North American franchises: ACE USA, ACE Canada and ACE Westchester.

The ACE Group is one of the world’s largest multiline property and casualty insurers. With operations in 53 countries, ACE provides commercial and personal property and casualty insurance, personal accident supplemental health insurance, reinsurance, and life insurance to a diverse group of clients. ACE Limited, the parent company of the ACE Group, is listed on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE: ACE) and is a component of the S&P 500 index. Additional information can be found at: www.acegroup.com.