A unit of Munich Re added two new executives to its underwriting team. PartnerRe Ltd. announced a number of personnel changes for its board of directors. QBE North America appointed an executive to a newly expanded leadership role.

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Munich Re Specialty Group Ltd. of London added two executives to lead its expanding underwriting team.

Steven Weiss is the new senior vice president/chief underwriting officer of Ocean and Inland Marine Insurance. Ben Tucker was appointed SVP/CUO of Specialty Insurance including cyber, terrorism/PV and financial lines.

Weiss’ background includes 28 years as a marine surveyor, loss adjuster and underwriter. He has consulted as a critical witness on many aspects of marine transportation and liability claims and coordinated challenging logistics projects. Previously, Weiss was an SVP at Aspen and Liberty International.

Tucker, with over 20 years of industry experience as both broker and underwriter, brings with him a deep understanding of property and terrorism risks. He spent 12 years expanding his knowledge in various divisions of Marsh before transitioning over to XL Catlin in 2013 as the head of U.S. Terrorism and Political Violence division.

Weiss and Tucker will report to John Hennessy, the new CEO and president of Roanoke Group Inc., who is charged with leading the expansion of MRSG’s underwriting platform in the Americas.

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PartnerRe Ltd. said Brian Dowd will succeed John Elkann as chairman of the company’s board of directors, effective Sept. 1, 2018.

Elkann, who is chairman and CEO of EXOR, will remain on the board.

PartnerRe also announced that Nikhil Srinivasan will step down from the board to become chief investment officer, subject to customary governmental approvals. Srinivasan will report to president and CEO Emmanuel Clarke and also join the company’s executive leadership team.

Srinivasan will succeed Andrea Casarotti, who is becoming head of Corporate Planning and will also reporting to Clarke, subject to Bermuda immigration approval.

Additionally, Mary Ann Brown will join the board as an independent director, effective Sept. 1.

Brown retired from her executive management role at Pacific Life Insurance Company in 2017, where she most recently was chair of Pacific Life Re. Before Pacific Life, Brown previously held multiple executive roles at New York Life, MetLife and Swiss Re.

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QBE North America appointed Dennis Kearns as head of Distribution & Major Trading Partner Engagement.

This is a newly expanded role with the organization designed to facilitate partnership building and drive profitable growth with the producers in its limited and preferred distribution platform.

Based in New York City, Kearns will work closely with QBE’s regional executives and provide a strategic voice on distribution, overseeing sales operations and driving engagement in North America with QBE’s top global trading partners.

Kearns has more than 20 years of insurance industry experience. Most recently, he was SVP, transactional liability and financial institutions underwriting leader for QBE North America’s Specialty business. He joined QBE in 2013 in a product development role and was responsible for engineering the launch of nearly 30 Specialty insurance products.

Before QBE, Kearns was a managing director and manager of the Claims Advocacy Group for Marsh FINPRO, where he specialized in complex coverage and claims issues focused on the public company, private company, financial institution and commercial E&O segments. He also worked for Chubb as a senior attorney in the claims, general counsel and underwriting departments within their property/casualty and specialty lines business units.

Sources: Munich Re, PartnerRe, QBE North America.