IRUA Officers & Directors

Dawnmarie, an accomplished broker and underwriter, joined Lloyd’s in 2018 from London broker BMS Group, where she served as a Senior Vice President on the Risk Solutions team. In her role as Northeast Regional Director, she is responsible for market development activities in a 12-state region stretching from Maryland and Washington, D.C. to Maine.  She is also responsible for the Broker Practice group strategy nationally.

Dawnmarie brings more than 20 years of experience, having served in senior leadership roles with Ascot, Aon Benfield, AIG, and Chubb.  Most recently, in her four years with BMS Group, Dawnmarie was instrumental in market development and production efforts across multiple product lines. She focused on program business, having produced and managed her own portfolio of programs and also served as Target Markets liaison for BMS Re US.

Dawnmarie has her Bachelor of Arts degree from Allegheny College. She is actively involved in insurance industry philanthropic efforts and currently serves as Vice Chair of the IICF Boston Board and is actively involved in charitable work through the Covenant House.

Ryan Chefalas is an Assistant Vice President and Senior Underwriter for OdysseyRe based in Stamford, CT.  He is responsible for underwriting both Property and Marine Treaty business.  Ryan has nine years of total experience working in the Insurance/Reinsurance industry.

Prior to joining OdysseyRe, Ryan worked at Starr Companies in a variety of roles.  Most recently, he worked on their Large Commercial Property Underwriting team based out of NY.  In addition, he also spent several years working in Starr’s Catastrophe Modeling and Loss Control Engineering departments.

Ryan holds a Master’s Degree from St. John’s University in Enterprise Risk Management and a Bachelor’s Degree from Adelphi University in Mathematics.

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Keith Cartmell is a Senior Vice President and Property Treaty Reinsurance Underwriter for Toa Reinsurance Company of America, based in the Morristown, New Jersey office.  He joined Toa in 2020 after 16+ years with Sirius Group.  Keith joined Folksamerica Re (a predecessor company of the Sirius Group) in 2004 in their Claims Department.  He transitioned to Property Treaty Underwriting in 2007 and held various positions within the underwriting department during that time.  Keith graduated from Boston University in 2001.

Nick Cook is Chief Risk Officer at Crum & Forster in the Morristown, NJ office. Previously, he held the position of  Senior Vice President and Head of Ceded Reinsurance and advanced to his new position in January 2020. Prior responsibilities at Crum & Forster include leading the Small Business Team as well as working with the Actuarial, Underwriting and Operations teams to implement submission scoring, risk selection and pricing tools for the E&S Casualty division.

Before joining Crum & Forster, Nick held treaty underwriting roles at OdysseyRe, most recently serving as a Vice President working with clients in the U.S and Bermuda casualty markets. Nick is a graduate of Georgetown University and holds the CPCU and ARe designations.  He resides in Stamford, CT.

Sam DeGiovanni began his career in the reinsurance industry in 2009 as part of Aspen Re’s graduate training scheme before assuming full-time positions in Aspen’s US casualty facultative and treaty teams underwriting casualty and professional lines reinsurance.

In May 2020, Sam joined the newly launched Ryan Re team and currently serves as VP and Senior Casualty Underwriter.

Sam graduated magna cum laude from Boston College with a degree in Economics and Hispanic Studies and has been a member of the IRUA board of directors since 2018.

Meghan’s current role is Vice President, Casualty Facultative Manager at Aspen Re America. She is a Casualty Facultative Underwriter writing Auto Liability, General Liability, and Excess/Umbrella Liability. Meghan joined Aspen in August 2012 and has earned her CPCU, ARe and RPLU professional designations. She values both the analytical and client-facing aspects of underwriting.

Meghan strives to provide clients with high quality and personal service while maintaining a profitable book of business. She also takes on additional responsibilities such as leading Management Information Reporting for the Casualty Facultative team and is a member of various committees such as the Social Committee and an Advocacy Program within Aspen.

Brendan Furlong is an Assistant Secretary and Senior Treaty Underwriter at OdysseyRe. Brendan’s areas of underwriting focus include Umbrella, General Liability, Personal and Commercial Auto, and Environmental Liability. He manages a wide variety of accounts within Odyssey’s General Casualty business unit and works with clients ranging from small regional carriers to large international carriers.

Brendan holds the Chartered Property Casualty Underwriter (CPCU) and Associate in Reinsurance (ARe) designations from The Institutes and graduated from The Fox School of Business at Temple University with a Bachelors of Business Management in Risk Management and Insurance and a minor in Accounting. In addition to the IRUA, Brendan is a member of the John Street Insurance Club.

Joshua Hackett is currently Managing Director- Head of Casualty at Arch Reinsurance Co and has over 10 years of insurance, reinsurance, and financial services experience.

Josh began his career with Zurich Financial Services as an underwriting trainee in their Global Associate Program focusing on large commercial property insurance. He then joined Endurance Re (Sompo) as a reinsurance treaty casualty underwriter where he became an AVP. Josh moved on to become a sell-side equity associate focusing on the insurance sector at Goldman Sachs Global Investment Research, until ultimately returning to the reinsurance field as Vice President of Broker Treaty Casualty at Swiss Reinsurance.

Josh received a Masters International Affairs from University of California, San Diego School of Global Policy and Strategy and a Bachelor of Arts in International Relations and Political Science from University of Delaware. He holds the CPCU and ARe designations, and has passed the Series 7, 63, 87 licensing exams.

Tom joined Guy Carpenter as its Strategic Advisory Leader for US/Canada in 2017 after spending three years at Arch Reinsurance in an underwriting capacity developing solutions for clients to help manage capital and take advantage of predictive modeling endeavors.  The Strategic Advisory team includes Capital & Growth Advisory, Rating Agency Advisory, and Structured Risks Solutions.

Prior to joining Guy Carpenter and Arch Re, Tom was the America’s P&C Sales and Practice Leader for Towers Watson, a position he stepped into after leading the America’s ERM team for Towers Watson.  Tom was a founding partner of EMB America, LLC, an industry leading ERM and predictive modeling software and solutions provider.

Tom graduated from Illinois Wesleyan University with a Bachelors of Arts in Mathematics and minor in Insurance.

Elizabeth (Liz) Hodge is currently Vice President, Senior Property Treaty Underwriter at SCOR Reinsurance Company located in the New York Office.  She has over 25 years of experience working in the reinsurance industry which the last four years have been with SCOR Re.

Prior to joining SCOR in 2017, she spent almost 10 years at Everest Reinsurance Company in Liberty Corner, New Jersey, where she was Vice President, Property Treaty and Cat Underwriter, responsible for the development and management of a $90 million portfolio of Property Risk, Catastrophe and Crop business.

Liz began her career as an Underwriting Assistant at Zurich Re and later moved to XL Re where she worked as a Contract Analyst, Executive Reporting Analyst and then moved to Folksamerica where she worked as a Property Underwriter. She then spent a couple of years working at RMS as a Senior Account Manager supporting brokers like Guy Carpenter and Gallagher with their catastrophe modelling needs prior to joining Everest.

In addition to her professional career, she has held multiple board positions at the West Milford Police Athletic League and is currently the Treasurer of the Greenwood Lake Skate Park Corp., a community non-profit working to build a local skatepark in the Village of Greenwood Lake, New York.

Liz holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Business Management from Bloomfield College, Bloomfield, New Jersey.

Danny Hojnowski is a Senior Vice President at TransRe in the Specialty Casualty Underwriting unit with a focus on E&O, D&O and Cyber treaties. During his 15 years at TransRe Danny has also worked in the facultative unit where he underwrote individual Professional Liability risks. In addition to working as an underwriter, he is responsible for monitoring TransRe’s aggregate exposure across their global Professional Liability book of business and in 2021 was named US D&O/E&O Treaty Department Manager. Danny was instrumental in implementing TransRe’s “Entity Data Analytics” which allows TransRe to analyze exposure and pricing across their portfolio by aggregating individual policy level details.

Prior to joining TransRe, Danny was a D&O underwriter at Ace American Insurance Company in New York and a facultative underwriter at Everest Re based in both New York and Bermuda.

Julie is a Managing Director at Guy Carpenter with over 12 years of experience. She is responsible for treaty account management for various clients across multiple lines of business.

Julie graduated from Fairfield University with a degree in business management, has completed the Guy Carpenter training program and earned the ARe, AIS, ARM & CPCU designations. Julie has served on the IRUA Education Committee and Board of Directors since 2015.

Michael Schummer was born and raised in  Philadelphia and graduated from Temple University’s Actuarial program in 1991.  He worked at several large national writers in an actuarial capacity, supporting pricing and operations in the field.  After a short stint in Northern California, he moved to American Re (now Munich Re) in Princeton, still in an Actuarial capacity.  Michael moved to underwriting in 2002 and currently has the role of Senior Vice President and a Casualty Team Lead in the Treaty area.

Steven G. Simmons is currently Senior Vice President and Head of NY Working Property Treaty of Sirius International Managers, LLC. Sirius was renamed SiriusPoint following the February 2021 merger of Sirius Group and Third Point Reinsurance.

Mr. Simmons has over 29 years’ experience in the insurance/reinsurance industry of which the last four years have been with the Sirius Group (including Sirius America Insurance Company) (“Sirius”).

Prior to joining Sirius in 2016, Mr. Simmons spent 14 years at Partner Reinsurance Company in Greenwich, CT, where he was Senior Vice President and Senior Underwriter, responsible for the development and management of a $75 million individual property treaty portfolio.

Mr. Simmons began his career as Senior Accountant/Auditor with Ernst & Young, and later moved to XL (NAC Re), where he launched his career in reinsurance in the finance area, as Senior Auditor and Officer. He later transferred to underwriting as Property Facultative Underwriter and Officer in NAC Re’s Chicago branch office.

Mr. Simmons has earned the CPCU and ARe designations.  He holds a BBA from Iona College and is also a CPA.

Mike Sowa recently joined Partner Re US in Stamford, Connecticut as Global Account Executive and Head of North American Broker Management.  This move follows a 17 year tenure with the Aspen Group of Companies.  Most recently he served as Group Chief Claims Officer with Aspen Insurance Holdings based in New York, NY.  He was appointed to that role in 2019.  Previously, he was the Managing Director of Global Accounts and Managing Director, Global Distribution & Marketing of Aspen Re  from June 2017 and prior to that was the Managing Director, North America and the Property Product Head.

He first joined Aspen Re in 2004 as one of the original six person executive team, and prior thereto Mike worked with FM Global, Frankona Re, NAC Re and XL Re and brings more than 40 years of varied insurance and reinsurance expertise as a result.

Mike served as IRUA’s President from 2015-2017 and has been a board member for over 10 years.

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Jennifer Uy is an Assistant Vice President Reinsurance Underwriter at MAPFRE Re, North America based in New Jersey, USA. She started her career with MAPFRE Primary Insurance in Palma de Mallorca, Spain.

In 2006, Jennifer relocated and joined MAPFRE Re, North America as a Corporate Accountant. She progressively assumed major responsibilities and was named Senior Underwriter and Crop Specialist managing Property and Agro treaty portfolios in the United States and Canada. Jennifer holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Business Administration from the University of Navarra’s School of Economics and Business in Pamplona, Spain.

Ryan joined EMC Re in 2018 and is currently Reinsurance Underwriting Manager of Domestic business and is based in the Kansas City area. Ryan has 20+ years of experience in the reinsurance and insurance industry. Prior to EMC Re he worked in various positions for Rockhill Insurance, the specialty division of State Auto. Ryan began his career with Swiss Re in Treaty Underwriting. Ryan graduated from Kansas State University with a degree in Accounting and Finance.

Carl Weinberger is originally from Stockholm, Sweden and graduated with a Master of Laws from the University of Stockholm. He started his career in the insurance industry in 1994 working for Gerling Konzern Allgemeine in Cologne, Germany. After 8 years on the insurance side, which allowed him to work in different Casualty Underwriting roles across the globe in Germany, Hong Kong, the US and Sweden, Carl moved into reinsurance in 2003, when he joined ERC/Frankona in Munich, Germany.

In 2006, Carl moved to the US working for Swiss Re. In 2011 he moved back to Europe to become Munich Re’s UK General Branch’s Casualty Manager in London, UK.

Carl has been back in the US since 2017 and currently holds the position of Senior Vice President and Casualty Underwriting Manager in the treaty area for Munich Re in Princeton

John’s career in insurance and reinsurance has spanned the spectrum from Accident and Health to Property, Casualty, Work Comp, Excess Work Comp, Occupational Accident.  Has worked as an intermediary, broker, claims analyst, and consultant in multiple other capacities. John was previously with the Devonshire Group, Axa LM, Helix UK, Alan Gray, Inc and LDG Re.

John’s current focus is on Liability Runoff Transfer, Captive Insurance, Reinsurance Audits and Commutation.  Additionally, has participated at Director level for several non-profit organizations. John is an Individual Member of the IRUA.

James Wilson
Senior Vice President – Casualty & Healthcare
Partner Re US