Laurie Infantino, AFIS, CIC, CISC, CISR, ACSR, CRIS, has been named Education Director of Insurance Journal’s Academy of Insurance.

The insurance education professional will focus on the quality of the instructors and the education content offered by Insurance Journal’s Academy of Insurance (www.ijacademy.com).

Infantino is currently president of Insight Insurance Consulting and the Insurance Community Center in La Quinta, Calif. She began her career in the insurance industry in 1971 following her graduation from UCLA and launched her career as an insurance educator in 1977 when she cofounded the Insurance Skills Center, which was eventually purchased by IBA West (now IIABA Cal).

Three years ago Infantino helped to form the Insurance Community University, an online education site similar to the Insurance Journal Academy. Insurance Community and University focuses on core technical topics and provides continuing education credits.

During her long career, Infantino has served as an insurance consultant, expert witness and developer of specialty wholesale programs. She also performs internal audits for agencies and has developed insurance training and assessment tools.

Insurance Journal’s Academy of Insurance provides online training on sales, agency management, coverage analysis, designation programs, claims and other topics. The Academy offers various levels of training programs that can be pre-purchased, live webinars for all employees, on-demand recordings, books and customized training.

“Laurie is an insurance education icon and has been a friend of and an editorial contributor to Insurance Journal for many years. We are thrilled to have her join us,” said Mitch Dunford, CEO of Wells Media Group Inc., parent company of the Academy and publisher of Insurance Journal and other insurance publications and websites. “She’s very smart, very entrepreneurial and the kind of person who is really fun to work with. I’m looking forward to 2014.”

“I consider it a wonderful challenge to be able to present cutting-edge education on timely topics through the Academy of Insurance,” Infantino said. “We’re going to be focusing on very current issues and hard-hitting trends in the industry and providing resources for people in this industry to be able to apply immediately to their professional development plans.”

She added: “The Academy classes focus on one-hour topics and participants need to take away clear learning objectives that translate immediately into their work environment. Education, as a whole, has changed with more and more training delivered through webinars and other media sources. With this challenge we cannot lose sight of the student. We must make sure the learning experience exceeds their expectation. My goal in joining the Academy is to offer another resource for professional development.”

(Reporter Don Jergler is the West Coast Editor of Insurance Journal)