People News: AIG, AIR Worldwide, CAIF

AIG Names DeSett Head of Field Operations, North America General Insurance

American International Group, Inc. announced that Timothy DeSett will join the company as head of Field Operations, North America General Insurance, reporting to Ken Riegler, chief operating officer, North America General Insurance. DeSett will join the company in February.

In this role, he will lead the development and implementation of key strategic and operational plans for products, segments, and geographical markets in North America. He will also oversee AIG industry segment leaders, broker and client engagement, branch managers, and North America zonal leaders to drive business objectives and deliver tailored solutions for clients and distribution partners.

DeSett has over 25 years of experience in the insurance industry. He joins AIG from Lockton Companies, where he served as executive vice president – Risk Practices, with responsibility for overseeing Lockton’s national practice teams. Prior to joining Lockton in 2002, he served as vice president for CNA Insurance where he oversaw the structuring and distribution of alternative risk products to Fortune 1000 companies in the U.S.

AIR Worldwide Appoints Roger Grenier to Lead Global Resilience Practice

Catastrophe modeling firm AIR Worldwide (AIR) announced the appointment of Dr. Roger Grenier as senior vice president of global resilience to lead AIR’s resilience initiatives across the globe. The initiatives are aimed at developing solutions that aid society’s efforts to better prepare for and recover from extreme events. AIR Worldwide is a Verisk business.

AIR’s global resilience practice serves these distinct roles:

• Develop solutions that aid society’s efforts to better prepare for extreme events.
• Assist organizations in applying catastrophe modeling to disaster risk financing in an effort to close the global protection gap.
• Establish alliances with organizations to share data and advance the science of modeling and help society better manage the risks from natural hazards.
• Strengthen relationships with regulatory bodies and rating agencies globally.

Grenier began his career as an engineer where he worked on a wide array of models for environmental, flood, and coastal engineering projects, including helping to develop a comprehensive water quality and circulation model for New York Harbor. He has 20 years of experience working directly with global risk models and was formerly director of catastrophe research and development at Liberty Mutual, where he was responsible for developing the Liberty view of catastrophe risk and developing techniques to evaluate non-modeled catastrophe risk worldwide.

Insurance Fraud Attorney Tapped to Lead Coalition’s Government Affairs Efforts

Nationally known insurance-fraud attorney and insurance law expert Matthew J. Smith has been named director of government affairs and general counsel for the Coalition Against Insurance Fraud.

Smith oversees the Coalition’s extensive work in enacting stronger state anti-fraud laws across the U.S.

Smith also advises government and regulatory groups on anti-fraud strategy. He advises the NAIC’s Antifraud Task Force, and sits on the task forces of numerous state organizations such as the Virginia State Police. Smith also advises National Council of Insurance Legislators and National Conference of State Legislatures.

He also directs the Coalition’s longtime program of filing amicus “friend-of-the-court” legal briefs. They give anti-fraud legal guidance to courts overseeing major cases that set national precedents on insurance fraud.

A frequent lecturer, panelist and noted insurance-fraud expert, Smith advises fraud fighters on how to balance use of technology while protecting privacy rights of consumers.

Smith founded a national insurance services law firms specializing in insurance-fraud investigation and bad-faith defense litigation. Cincinnati-based Smith, Rolfes & Skavdahl has eight offices throughout the midwest and Florida. The firm broke new ground by specializing in all aspects of insurer defense against insurance fraud, from investigations to civil actions.

He has won more than 100 civil actions — including cases against home and commercial insurance arsonists, chiropractors, pill mill operators, MRI clinics and other insurance swindlers. Many of Smith’s appellate victories have set significant court precedents. Last year, he oversaw an amicus filing in Kentucky that helped to overturn a lower court’s ruling prohibiting insurers from using examinations under oath.

Smith pioneered using data from cell towers as evidence in civil insurance-fraud cases — now standard practice around the U.S – and helped popularize searches of social-media to gather fraud evidence.