The InsurTech Buckle hired a former Farmers Insurance executive in a leadership role. Hippo appointed a number of new executives to its technology team. AXIS Insurance is bringing on a new executive for its U.S. Excess Casualty business.

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A former Farmers Insurance executive is joining InsurTech startup Buckle in a leadership role.

Additionally, Buckle has hired an ex-auto dealership executive to fill another key position.

Andrew Sand will be vice president of Product Management. He was previously at Farmers, most recently as Head of Commercial Auto. Tim Morris is Buckle’s new director of Dealer Development. Morris was most recently director of Outside Sales at Cox Automotive. Cox Automotive provides vehicle remarketing services and digital marketing/software for auto dealers and consumers.

Buckle’s digital financial services platform serves the emerging middle class and providers to the gig economy.

Sand will be tasked with advancing Buckle’s insurance products to support Buckle driver members with their auto insurance coverages. Morris will be tasked with expanding Buckle’s dealership partner network to provide members with high quality leased vehicles at affordable rates from U.S. auto retailers.

Previously, Sand also served as director of Product Management, Commercial Lines for Mercury Insurance for nearly 12 years. He had P&L responsibility for both Commercial Auto and Commercial Multi-peril lines of the business. For more than 16 years, he also held various underwriting, sales and service, and product positions at Progressive Insurance.

Morris has held various sales positions at automotive companies of all sizes, from startups to multinational corporations, including Mercedes-Benz, VinSolutions, Grayson BMW, and Dealertrack, among others. He has extensive experience in retail auto dealership operation and dealership vendor and partner representation.

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Hippo, a home insurance InsurTech, has appointed a number of new executives to its technology team. They are:

• Klarissa Marenitch, Hippo’s first CIO, who will oversee the critical systems that support the productivity and efficiency of Hippo’s fast-growing employee base, including Information Technology, Corporate Technology, Information Security, Business & Insurance Systems, and Employee Productivity. She joins Hippo from her previous role of CIO at enterprise firm Anaplan. She has led digital transformation and innovation initiatives for companies including Redbox, Sun Microsystems, Kohl’s and Macys.
• Lukasz Strozek, Hippo’s vice president of Product Engineering, who will manage Hippo’s B2C, B2B, and Insurance Development teams and help develop new products that support Hippo’s customers and partner network. He joins Hippo from ecommerce payments firm Bolt, where he was vice president, Engineering. Earlier in his career, Strozek co-founded an online lending company acquired by digital finance firm, SoFi.
• Dalit Shahar joined Hippo in September 2019 from Globality Inc. and was promoted to the role of vice president, Engineering Operations. She will oversee the planning, execution and release processes of Hippo’s engineering operations, as well as the Quality operations.
• Mike Gordon joined Hippo in September 2019 and has been promoted to the role of vice president, Platform Engineering. He will oversee the cloud infrastructure, platform core services, engineering productivity, data platforms, API capabilities and service-oriented-architecture rollout across all of Hippo engineering solutions. Before Hippo, he spent 8 years as a software engineering leader at Google.
• Tal Hornstein, Hippo’s Chief Security Information Officer (CISO), brings over 25 years of industry experience in multiple security-related startups and tech firms, including five years at Globality Inc. and 13 years with Skybox Security. He will be responsible for driving information security strategy and operations for Hippo and scaling Hippo’s information security team, secure cloud infrastructure and development lifecycle, user education, compliance and risk governance.
• Ruben Kogel, Hippo’s Director of Data & Analytics, will oversee a center-of-excellence in data and analytics, and support scaling the company’s data science efforts. He was most recently at Lime where he built and led the company’s data science and analytics team.

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AXIS Insurance hired Thomas Uribe as an assistant vice president for its U.S. Excess Casualty business.

Uribe will be responsible for broadening relationships with distribution partners, expanding general new business opportunities and the execution of underwriting strategy. Uribe is based in Alpharetta, Georgia, and reports to Britt Smith, senior vice president and Regional Manager, U.S. Excess Casualty.

Uribe joins AXIS from AXA XL, where he was Senior Underwriter – E&S Excess Casualty for the company’s Western, Central and Southeast U.S. regions. Prior to that, he was a Senior Casualty Underwriter for Berkshire Hathaway Specialty Insurance. Uribe also spent four years in Excess Casualty underwriting roles at Swiss Re, and began his career at AIG.

Sources: Buckle, Hippo and AXIS Insurance