Global specialty insurer AmTrust Financial Services Inc. has announced the formation of a new leadership team for its Excess & Surplus division, promoting and expanding the roles of five executives.

Senior Vice President Erich Bublitz will lead the division, reporting to Dan Hickey, president of AmTrust Specialty Insurance. He joined AmTrust from the Admiral Insurance Group, where he most recently served as SVP of Operations, responsible for home office underwriting, including the office of the CUO, information technology, specialty underwriting and numerous other administrative areas.

Shannon Piotrowski was promoted to VP of the Brokerage New Business Team. She was previously director, Underwriting, with responsibility for the Central and Southern new business teams.

Caseta Paul was promoted to VP of the Brokerage Renewal Team. She started as an underwriter with AmTrust E&S in 2017 after numerous years at MGAs and carriers.

Jackie Hennig will lead the Unsupported Excess Team. Previously, Hennig was the leading production underwriter for the unit and was instrumental in AmTrust’s successful launch of this product in 2021.

Christopher Fylak will expand the Binding Platform. He has served as an executive member of the E&S leadership team since 2017 and will continue in this role with an expanded focus on developing and enhancing AmTrust’s E&S binding platform to deliver cutting-edge technology solutions to improve the experience for its agent partners.

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Great American Insurance Group has promoted Jason M. Cohen to senior vice president and Julie F. Kadnar to divisional group president within its Property & Casualty Group.

Cohen joined the company in 2006 as divisional vice president within Corporate Claims before transitioning to Strategic Comp, a business unit focused on workers compensation insurance, where he held positions of increasing responsibility. Cohen has served as divisional president of Strategic Comp since 2017 and as a divisional reporting officer since 2020. He will now assume additional reporting responsibilities for the Specialty Human Services Division and Great American’s Loss Control department.

Kadnar joined the company in 1988 as an auditor and later transitioned to the Product Data Compliance department, where she served as divisional SVP. In 2004, Kadnar joined the Property & Inland Marine Division and has held various leadership roles of increasing responsibility. She was promoted to divisional president in 2017 and will continue to serve in this role, with the additional responsibilities of overseeing the Ocean Marine Division and the Dempsey & Siders Insurance Agency.

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Markel International has hired Ben Wakeham as senior war and terrorism underwriter and head of Terrorism, North America.

The new arrival marks Markel International’s entry into the U.S. war and terrorism market. Wakeham will be responsible for leading a team in the U.S., which will allow the organization to serve clients locally.

Reporting to Ed Winter, senior underwriter and head of Terrorism at Markel International, Wakeham will be based at Markel’s London office for 12 months before moving to the U.S. next year.

Previously, Wakeham was employed as assistant vice president and head of Property and Terrorism at Hiscox USA, Los Angeles, where he managed the terrorism portfolio to be one of the largest in the market. He also provided leadership and mentoring to Hiscox’s national team of underwriters.

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Fairfax Financial Holdings Limited has appointed Peter Clarke as president.

Over the past 20 years, Clarke has held the position of vice president, chief operating officer, chief risk officer and chief actuary. He is a member of Fairfax’s Executive and Investment Committees and will continue in his role as COO.

Prem Watsa, chairman and CEO of Fairfax, commented, “Peter has done an outstanding job for Fairfax in numerous roles over the past two decades and fully deserves his appointment as our president. In many ways, Peter has been the president of Fairfax for some time now; it just took us a while to realize it. There is no one who represents Fairfax culture any better—smart, hard-working with no ego! I look forward to continuing to work very closely with Peter.”