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Senior Vice President
Umbrella and Excess Specialty Practice Head
Guy Carpenter & Co.
Norwalk, Conn.

The Call of Transparency

In the past year, Josh Everdell helped design and market a new workers' compensation catastrophe product that creates a shorter-tail reinsurance solution.

The result allows ceding companies to manage credit risk more efficiently while minimizing the company's basis risk.

In addition, Everdell, 38, helped clients by restructuring their reinsurance protections to secure more capacity in the midst of difficult market conditions. In the last year, Everdell also worked to expand Guy Carpenter's offerings on umbrella coverage for larger regional companies, and he secured reinsurance capacity from markets that had not previously written the line of business.

"He's technically sound and he's a great listener," said one client. "And he's an outstanding negotiator. He's somebody with whom we feel free to share changes we might be making. He creates a very transparent climate. He's a wonderful go-between between us and the reinsurance market." This client has been with Everdell since 2002 and he sees the relationship continuing to be a long-term one. "He maintains his composure under fire and builds a climate of trust. He's very gracious."

"He's very transparent," said another client who has been with Everdell for six years. "He's excellent at problem solving. He's an effective communicator, good at clarifying issues. I've found Josh has a pretty keen eye making sure legal language is clear, and contract certainty is very important to us. He is very good at cutting to the chase."

Senior Vice President
Aon Benfield
Stamford, Conn.

The Committed Broker

"Frank has the rare quality to be able to have control over the details of a transaction and at the same time have the interpersonal skills to make a deal happen," said Travelers' Jeff Klenk, senior vice president for management liabilty, who has worked with Hand for more than 15 years. "With these talents he is really able to drive transactions."

Added Klenk: "He has the ability to make people know they can trust him. That if he says he's going to do something he will do it." Noted another client: "Frank is committed to what he does. He likes what he does. You can sense that. He's not looking for the limelight but rather he's looking to get deals done. He's tough but he's fair."

During 2008 and 2009 Hand led several teams in helping create optimal reinsurance solutions for clients operating in a very difficult environment, especially the directors' and officers' (D&O) and errors and omissions (E&O) space.

As part of those efforts, Hand helped secure more reinsurance capacity for clients, restructured programs to help protect clients against systemic risk, and provided advice to clients exposed to the credit crisis and the Madoff scandal. Hand's role in the leadership team of Aon Benfield's D&O practice group enabled him to work alongside colleagues to provide additional line-of-business support, including analytical capabilities, in an effort to bring best practices to his clients.

With 23 years of industry and professional lines experience, Hand brings strong financial and technical background to bear on behalf of his clients.

Executive Vice President, Managing Director
Willis Re
Chicago

Laughing First ... and Last

Neil Morrell is known for a great professional sense of humor, both with his clients and his staff. "Neil is a bright fellow, that comes first," said David Rader, CEO of Charleston, W.V.-based West Virginia Mutual Insurance Co. "But he is also very personable and a person of high integrity."

"Neil laughs a lot," added Kurt Scott. "People who work with him laugh a lot, too. It's infectious. He has the right sort of balance in his life." In one instance, Neil's group lowered his net cost of insurance. I said to Neil, 'Is there anything special I can do?' He said there were two brokers, one in London and one in the United States, who had been the driving force of the deal. Neil suggested that if I was so moved to I could write them letters of commendation, which Neil would share with the team. So I did it."

Scott added that Morrell runs a very transparent operation. "There aren't any secrets," he said. "There isn't a black box. Everybody gets very involved to help us achieve a better deal. It's a very open process."

"He has a good combination of technical skills and interpersonal talents that allow all parties in a transaction to keep moving in the same direction," added David Rader. "He does a very good job for us."

In the past year, Neil and his team have created and developed various new systemic protections for the medical professional industry. This involved analyzing alternative approaches in the marketplace and designing new treaties to encompass the clients' needs.

Morrell and his team also used nationwide and state-specific increased limit factors (ILF) and base rate analysis to ensure that none of their clients are prejudiced in the marketplace when pricing against its peers. This has resulted in significant reinsurance cost savings to two major clients.

Executive Vice President, Managing Director
Willis Re
Philadelphia

In the End it's Overend

James Overend's service is marked by a well-rounded knowledge of the industry and lots of creativity, said Claudia Pryor, assistant vice president, corporate reinsurance department, FM Global in Johnston, R.I.

"He knows the primary business as well as other aspects of the reinsurance equation," noted Pryor. "He has been brought into the fabric of our company. He knows our risk appetite and has a very good understanding of what that means to us. Also, he knows the markets. That's a big plus. And he deals very well with people. He has one of the best personalities in the business for dealing with all types of personalities."

Added an executive at another firm that has dealt with Overend for 15 years: "He's a consistent business partner of ours. He's executed very well on two of our largest reinsurance treaties. He has been a great resource of information for us on whether something has been possible or not possible. He has definitely helped us make better sense of information we present to reinsurers. He is a marketing personality: he's easy-going and can readily strike up a conversation with anyone."

During the past year, in addition to managing existing accounts, Overend and his team were successful in winning new accounts that were previously direct market placements. New wins for the reinsurance broker market are hard to come by, so these victories were especially noteworthy.

Managing Director
Guy Carpenter & Co.
Norwalk, Conn.

A Ripened Talent

Bill Plumb is a reinsurance broker of many talents, said Jim Gray, executive vice president of Max Bermuda Ltd. "He has a wide range of contacts," noted Gray. "He knows who has the appetite in the market and the way he does that is maintain his relationships."

"He is a good mediator," added Gray. "He knows the pressure point and knows when to back off. He is the best reinsurer I've ever seen."

"He's a great communicator," observed David Perez, president and chief underwriting officer of global casualty, Torus Insurance (Bermuda Ltd.). "He was very up on start-up information when we launched our company. He has a great personality; very calm; very empathetic. He took a lot of the potential waste of time away from us, and he opened some important doors for us."

"His service is unbelievable," noted Gary Lefler, assistant vice president and manager of ceded reinsurance at The Hartford. "He's always on top of things; always there for us. He has a wealth of knowledge. With both property and casualty he's good at both ends. I've known him for 15 years. He deals with difficult and complex situations in a very calm, assertive way. He knows how to rally his people. He's a very hard-working guy, very involved."

Plumb developed new reinsurance capacity to address higher reinsurance needs for both excess/umbrella liability and professional liability clients. To do that he reached out to Guy Carpenter's Instrat group to develop profitability model.

Managing Director
Aon Benfield
New York

A Craftsman of Capital

Tim Ronda is known for his ability to delve deeply into the business of a client, not just the client's insurance needs. "He studies our business," said James Fiore, New York-based chief underwriting officer of QBE the Americas. "For example, recently we acquired a very sizable portfolio in an area that Tim was new to. But before long he became an expert in that line."

Terry Pimentel, president of Arch Insurance [Bermuda], strongly seconded that. "Tim not only understands the reinsurance needs of his clients but he has a deep understanding of the business his client is in. That makes him a standout."

Ronda is trustworthy. "We have a lot of belief in what Tim tells us," observed Pimentel. "He is first and foremost dedicated to his craft."

Personally, Ronda is very down to earth, the kind of person you can have a beer with, an acquaintance noted. "He's very personable," said James Fiore. He has to be, with the number of client appointments he keeps and the recent scouring of the marketplace for more capacity.

In 2009, Ronda and his team were successful in attracting additional capacity for a client with strong financial ratings. While the client's results have historically been very profitable, it was still an accomplishment to find new capacity because many reinsurers are seeking to trim aggregate capacity as primary insurance rates are not yet increasing as fast as some reinsurers would like.