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Kathy Ryan, SPHR, is an award-winning author and owner of Pinnacle Coaching Group, LLC.  Over the last 30 years, Kathy has influenced thousands of people in the business and non-profit sectors through her coaching, consulting, speaking and on-site training. Her expertise covers a wide range of subjects including leadership, communication, human resources management, team dynamics, and performance management.

Kathy earned her B.A. degree in psychology and history from Dickinson College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania and has been awarded a lifetime certification as a Senior Professional in Human Resources (SPHR) from the Society for Human Resources Management. She has experience working with diverse industries including insurance, hospitality and entertainment. She is certified in the use of the Myer-Briggs Type Assessment (MBTI), as well as a number of other assessments and tools to support development.

Kathy is author of the book, "You Have to Say the Words" An Integrity-Based Approach for Tackling Tough Conversations and Maximizing Performance, which won a Royal Palm Literary Award from the Florida Writers Association.  Her interactive training program based on the book has helped thousands of managers to improve their coaching skills and drive performance. Her articles on leadership and other personal development topics have been published in numerous magazines including the Insurance Journal. You can follow Kathy’s blog, Inspired Leadership, at www.CoachKathyRyan.com .

Frederick J. Fisher, J.D. is currently the President of Fisher Consulting Group, Inc. and was the Founder of E.L.M. Insurance Brokers, a Wholesale & MGA facility specializing in Professional Liability and Specialty Line risks. He is a Member of the Editorial Board for Agents of America;  a Faculty Member of the Claims College, and Member of the Executive Council, School of Professional Lines sponsored by the Claims & Litigation Management Association and Instructor for the Academy of Insurance.

Since his career began, Mr. Fisher focused on one vision: providing financial security to the client. The result was a successful 40-year career in Specialty Lines Insurance. In 1975, Mr. Fisher began his career on the service side, as an Independent E&O claims adjuster. In 1982, he bought the Company, continued with claims, while expanding the firm’s services to include qualitative claim auditing, risk management & loss control services, and acting as a TPA. In only 4 years, the annual billings increased by 400%. His claim auditing techniques and recommendations resulted in substantial client savings (including the SCRTD now known as the Los Angles MTA). Many Insurers and self-insureds adopted not only the performance standards raised in the audits but adopted his recommended Attorney Management Guidelines as a base, which are still in use today by many major insurers. 

In 1995, he formed what is now known as ELM insurance Brokers, a firm that has acted as an MGA and Wholesale Broker of Professional Liability Insurance and Specialty Lines. From nothing, the firm grew rapidly to a $30 Million dollar facility when sold in 2008. He has lectured extensively on professional liability issues since 1978 and authored over 64 articles in trade journals and periodicals. He is the author of BROKER BEWARE, Selling Real Estate within the Law. He designed a program to conduct on-site pre-underwriting risk management assessments of a clients' professional liability exposures. In 1993, he was elected to the Professional Liability Underwriting Society (PLUS) Board of Trustees. After serving in all Officer capacities, he was elected President in 1997. He remains a Special Materials Expert for several RPLU courses and is the Senior Technical Advisor for The Professional Liability Manual, first published by the International Risk Management Institute in 1990. He has taught over 100 CE classes and lectures. He testifies regularly as an expert witness in cases dealing with the duties and obligations of professionals as well as on coverage and claims-made issues.

Nancy Germond is the Executive Director, Risk Management and Education, for the Independent Insurance Agents & Brokers of America, the “Big I.” She is located in Phoenix, Arizona. With almost four decades of risk management experience, her unique insights and abilities help businesses better understand and manage their risk. Nancy has authored scores of risk management-related articles, and white papers and has consulted and presented to public-sector and private-sector insurance organizations. She is a licensed P&C agent and adjuster.

A second-generation insurance professional, Nancy was the first risk manager of the City of Prescott, Arizona, and has worked in the private and public sectors as a claim and risk manager. Nancy holds a B.A. in Communication from Mills College and a Master’s degree in sociology from Lincoln University. She also holds the Associate in Risk Management, the Associate in Claims designation from the Insurance Institute of America, the Insurance Training Professional Designation from the Society of Insurance Trainers and is a Senior Professional in Human Resource Management.

Chris Burand is the Owner/Founder of Burand & Associates, LLC.  Chris is the only insurance agency consultant with an Institute of Business Appraiser’s Certified Business Appraiser Accreditation and one of the very few who are certified by the two largest E&O carriers to provide audits for agencies.  With more than 35 years of experience in the insurance industry, Chris is acknowledged as a leading consultant and is a nationally recognized speaker and author.  His broad experience and wealth of knowledge have enabled him to work with hundreds of agencies, taking great care to learn the client’s goals and understand their needs while developing a solution for their specific situation.

Chris combines education, experience, and knowledge from multiple perspectives at proven levels that few other consultants or educators can provide.  This enables Chris to provide holistic solutions.  Chris’s services help agencies, individuals, and carriers identify strengths and opportunities, optimize productivity and profits, implement real-world strategies, leverage resources, and develop realistic plans of action in order to maximize profitable growth.

Chris established Burand & Associates in 1992 (originally known as Growth Planning).  As a consultant, Chris has consulted with hundreds of agencies and many major insurance carriers.  He built and now facilitates two insurance agency networking associations.  He is also a featured speaker across the continent.  To date, he has presented more than 400 seminars and educational programs, and his articles have also been published more than 500 times.  He is a monthly columnist for The Insurance Journal, a past columnist for American Agent & Broker for eleven years, and his articles have appeared in Rough Notes, The National Underwriter, A.M. Best, many regional insurance publications, and many other trade publications.  He also publishes Burand’s Insurance Agency Adviser for independent insurance agents.

Areas of Expertise

Insurance Agency Appraisals:  Chris Burand’s professional services include appraisals for Acquisitions and Sales, Buy/Sell Agreements, Mergers, Dissolutions, and Perpetuation Planning.

Contingency Contract Analysis:  Contingency contracts offer opportunities to increase compensation through negotiations and strategically placing business.  Chris Burand’s Contingency Contract Analysis® service provides the information agents need to take advantage of those opportunities.

Note:  Chris Burand and Burand & Associates, LLC are advocates of agencies which constructively manage and improve their contingency contracts by learning how to negotiate and use their contingency contracts more effectively.  We maintain that agents can achieve considerably better results without ever taking actions that are detrimental or disadvantageous to the insureds.  We have never and would not ever recommend that an agent and/or agency implement a policy of, or otherwise advocate, increasing its contingency income ahead of the insureds’ interests.

PEP® (Productivity Enhancement):  Chris’s innovative statistical algorithm method for identifying procedural consistency, compliance, activity cost, and opportunity cost savings.

Carrier MD® Stability Analysis:  A unique analytical method for creating opportunities to learn negotiating points and insurance carrier stability from an agency’s perspective.

Producer Compensation Plans:  Chris Burand develops plans that increase profits and motivate producers.

Chris Christian stumbled into insurance in 1985 as a temporary employee at GAF Insurance Services, a bank-affiliated insurance agency in San Diego.  After six years with GAF, Chris moved to the carrier side, opening the San Diego branch office of RLI Corp, an underwriter of specialty lines of insurance.  The San Diego office was dedicated to Directors and Officers Liability coverage, and was the launching pad for Chris’s specialization in professional liability.

Chris left RLI in 1997 to establish her own underwriting facility at London American General Agency and branched out thereafter into professional liability broking.

Chris joined U.S. Risk in November of 2005 and six months later relocated herself, her significant other, and 26 animals to Tennessee, where she continues her pursuit of the art and science of professional liability broking, and contributes to the industry as a frequent speaker, author and association participant.

Michael DeFelice has held multiple roles in the insurance world. He begin his insurance career in 2008 as a health, life, and disability broker. In 2013, he began working as a health insurance coordinator for dialysis companies, helping to make sure that patients were able to receive care without disruptions. More recently, he moved into his role as insurance administrator for the Sweet Group of New York. He reviews insurance documentation to mitigate risk and create risk management solutions for projects before subcontractors can begin to work with Sweet Group.

Michael has an MBA in Project Management and the Construction Risk Insurance Specialist designation. He lives in Staten Island with his wife of 17 years.

James founded a Workers' Compensation consulting firm, J&L Risk Mgmt Consultants, Inc. in 1996.  J&L's mission is to reduce our clients’ Workers Compensation premiums by using time-tested techniques.  J&L’s claims, premium, reserve and Experience Mod reviews have saved employers over   $9.8 million in earned premiums over the last three years.  J&L has saved numerous companies from bankruptcy proceedings as a result of insurance overpayments.
  
Experience

James has over 27 years of experience in insurance claims, audit, and underwriting, specializing in Workers' Compensation.  He has supervised, and managed the administration of Workers’ Compensation claims, and underwriting in over 45 states. His professional experience includes being the Director of Risk Management for the North Carolina School Boards Association.  He created a very successful Workers’ Compensation Injury Rehabilitation Unit for school personnel.  

Education

James's educational background, which centered on computer technology, culminated in earning a Masters of Business Administration (MBA); an Associate in Claims designation (AIC); and an Associate in Risk Management designation (ARM).  He is a Chartered Financial Consultant (ChFC) and a licensed financial advisor. The NC Department of Insurance has certified him as an insurance instructor.  He also possesses a Bachelors’ Degree in Actuarial Science.

Awards

LexisNexis has twice recognized his blog as one of the Top 25 Blogs on Workers’ Compensation. J&L has been listed in AM Best’s Preferred Providers Directory for Insurance Experts – Workers Compensation for over eight years. He recently won the prestigious Baucom Shine Lifetime Achievement Award for his volunteer contributions to the area of risk management and safety.  

  
Associations/Publications

James is on the Board of Directors and Treasurer of the North Carolina Mid-State Safety Council.  He has published two manuals on Workers’ Compensation and three different claims processing manuals.  He has also written and has been quoted in numerous articles on reducing Workers’ Compensation costs for public and private employers.  James publishes a weekly newsletter with 2,000 readers.

Marty Frappolli is a risk management and insurance consultant with Longhorn Knowledge Resources, headquartered in Austin, Texas. Longhorn offers custom individual and group insurance training, research, writing, and analytical services.

Previously, Marty served 18 years as Senior Director of Knowledge Resources for The Institutes in Malvern PA. His experience there includes the design of educational courses and safeguarding the academic integrity of Institutes curriculum. His national presentations and articles include showcases at RIMS, PLRB, IDMA, CAS, ACORD, NAPIA, and the CPCU Society. His specialty areas include claims, the IoT, autonomous vehicles, blockchain, cyber risk, and data management.

He is the author of these Institutes courses: Auto Claims Practices, Managing Cyber Risk, Claims Handling Principles and Practices, CPCU 530 - Business Law for Insurance Professionals, Principles of Workers Compensation Claims, Liability Claims Practices, and Claims Leadership & Organizational Alignment.

Before joining the Institutes, Marty led the Data Management group at NJM Insurance. Marty earned his B.A. at Rutgers University and his Masters in Organizational Leadership at Quinnipiac University. He was awarded the Fellow in Insurance Data Management (FIDM) designation by the Insurance Data Management Association (IDMA). 

Chris Amrhein, like most true believers in insurance, stumbled upon this business accidentally; specifically, after graduating from college and needing a job.

After beginning in this business as a life-health agent, he graduated to property-casualty sales where he first met the greatest mine of comedy material extant today, the ISO forms. Following several years as a producer and independent agency manager/owner, Chris spent many years as a full-time educator/VP-Education for the Florida Association of Insurance Agents and VP-Education for the Independent Insurance Agents and Brokers of America. Those years found him traveling about the country teaching seminars on everything from agency management to the claims made CGL. It has also taught him the absolute truth of Jimmy Buffet's famous observation about those who make a career of the property-casualty business: "If we weren't all crazy we would go insane."

Chris is now a speaker, consultant, seminar leader and training developer, and resides in Lorton, Virginia, with the love of his life (and wife) Donna and youngest son Alexandru (17). His two older sons - Patrick, 34 and Kevin, 32 – are doing quite well without him. His email address chris@insuranceisfun.com and website www.insuranceisfun.com, say it all.

Current Industry Activities:

• Member, CPCU Oversight Committee
• Member, Accredited Adviser in Insurance (AAI) Advisory Committee.
• Primary Author (AAI textbooks):
• Foundations of Insurance Production – Personal Insurance
• Multiple-Lines Insurance Production – Commercial Liability Insurance
• Agency Operations and Sales Management – Principles of Agency Management
• Monthly columnist (1993-present) - "Policy Issues" - Insurance Journal & American Agent & Broker Magazine
• Faculty member: IIABA’s Virtual University; Society of CIC James K. Ruble Seminars
• Developer of “Street Level Ethics” Program for AICPCU/IIA

Past Activities:

• Chairman. IIABA Future One Producer Development Task Force
• Member, IIABA Future One Subcommittee on Customer Service
• Author/Editor - Florida General Lines, Customer Representatives and Adjuster Study Manuals
• Member, IIABA Agency Management & Technology Committee

Betsey L. Brewer, CPCU is a Partner and Senior Vice President of The Rule Company, a regional broker in Pasadena, CA. She received her CPCU designation in 1981 and has served the Los Angeles Chapter as President. She served as a CPCU Society Governor and as the national President of the CPCU Society in 2007.

Betsey’s insurance career started in 1973. She joined a small local agency in 1976 that 25 years later had transformed into Aon. A survivor and beneficiary of 7 mergers and acquisitions along the way she is uniquely able to help you understand the tools you need to survive in today’s marketplace and why the CPCU Designation and volunteering in CPCU turned into a huge growth opportunity for her.

Betsey is a Secretary and Trustee of the CPCU-Loman Education Foundation and a past Trustee of the American Institute for CPCU/Insurance Institute of America. Betsey is past president of the Independent Insurance Agents & Brokers Association of Los Angeles and has served on the Insurance Skills Center Board of Directors and the Board of Directors for IBA-West. Currently she serves as Strategic Planning Chair for IBA-West.

Along with her other activities, Betsey is Chair of the Board of Directors for the Girl Scout of Greater Los Angeles Council serving 41,000 girls and 22,000 volunteers. Betsey has been honored by her peers with the1998 Rie Sharp Insurance Person of the Year and with the CPCU Society Leadership Recognition Award in 1999.

Betsey and her husband Don reside in Los Angeles.

When he started as an insurance agent with a direct writer in 1976, Casey never contemplated arriving where he is today.

Since that time he has worked as a personal lines producer and sales manager, commercial producer and sales manager, insurance consultant, continuing education teacher, and provider as well as a sales and sales management trainer, consultant, and expert witness.

In 2010 Casey formed Laurus (lorus) Insurance Consulting.  His company’s name was chosen with specific intent and purpose.  The name “Laurus” is derived from Latin words meaning “victory” or “success”.

The main purpose of Laurus Insurance Consulting is to help insurance professionals reach their goals and sales potential; ie, to achieve Their Desired Personal & Business Success. 

His history includes various stints as a leader on a local and state basis within the Independent Insurance agency business model.  He has achieved his various industry designations over a number of years and is contemplating his next one.

His continuing education efforts include teaching topics on a national level as varied as: insurance agents/brokers errors and omissions, workers’ compensation, agency management, all personal lines topics, farm property & liability, excess & umbrella, risk management, agency operations, and multiple commercial lines topics.   

Casey’s other passions include a seldom improving golf game and officiating boys and girls high school basketball in the greater Sacramento region.

He resides in Lincoln, California with his wife, Elaine MacKay, and their two dogs, Buddy & Bear.

After receiving his college degree from Mercer University in Macon, Georgia, and serving eight years as a commissioned officer in the U.S. Army and U.S. Coast Guard, David began his insurance career in a family-owned independent agency in Vero Beach, Florida where he was a licensed agent selling all types of insurance. 

In 1996 David accepted a training & education position with the Florida Association of Insurance Agents (FAIA) in Tallahassee, Florida where he presented continuing education seminars throughout the country on a variety of insurance subjects. After over 24 years at FAIA, David “semi-retired” in 2021 and now does independent insurance consulting for companies around the country.

In addition to being a full-time insurance nerd, David is an avid biker and smokes the best ribs, chicken, and pork in the country.  

Brenda Powell Wells holds both a Bachelor of Business Administration and a Ph.D. in Risk Management and Insurance from the University of Georgia.  She holds the Chartered Property and Casualty Underwriter (CPCU), Accredited Advisor of Insurance (AAI) and Construction Risk Insurance Specialist (CRIS) designations.

Brenda has spent over 30 years studying and teaching risk management and insurance.  She presently serves as the director of that program and is the Robert F. Bird Distinguished Professor of Risk Management and Insurance.

During her career she has taught numerous risk and insurance courses.  She has also supervised countless internships and independent study projects.  Brenda has a long history of forming, supporting, and mentoring student organizations and has a wide range of experience in public relations and fundraising.  She is the founder of the Texas Risk and Insurance Professional Society (TRIPS), a non-profit entity that supports insurance education.  She has a career fundraising total of well-over $2 million.

Brenda has published articles in Journal of Risk and Insurance, Journal of Insurance Regulation, Journal of Insurance Issues, and others.  Her current research interests include mass tort litigation in the pharmaceutical industry, the effect of marijuana legalization on the insurance industry, social media, cyber liability and how insurance education impacts public attitudes towards the insurance industry.  Her publication in Journal of Insurance Issues on marijuana legalization and its impact on property-casualty insurance is considered the seminal paper in this field.

Outside of her duties in academia, Brenda serves as a private consultant and corporate trainer to the insurance and risk management industry.  Her consulting firm—Risk Education Strategies--offers agency management consulting, social media consulting, custom seminar delivery, preparation of expert opinions and testimony, continuing education course delivery, agency valuation, risk management audits, and intellectual patent application review. More information about her firm can be found at www.riskedstrategies.com

Michael is an Inside Broker with CRC’s Executive Professional Practice Group, primarily responsible for placing and managing Cyber & Data Privacy Liability across many industry sectors.

Michael earned his Bachelor of Science from California Polytechnic State University – San Luis Obispo in 2019. There, he began his insurance career with Evolve MGA, a cyber-specialty market, as an associate underwriter focused on building an extensive knowledge of cyber policy wording, the cyber market, and how to properly assess a cyber-risk. Upon graduation, he joined Evolve MGA full-time as a production underwriter where he established an in-depth understanding of how to analyze a risk associated with the looming threats of cyber-attacks across all industry sectors. Among his responsibilities at Evolve MGA was the management of a Cyber and Tech E&O book of business along the West Coast.

Michael soom became a full-time Producer for Evolve and lead the West Coast Division in Los Angeles, CA. He generated an extensive client base of retail broker agencies throughout 10 states while simultaneously maintaining a comprehensive knowledge of competitive cyber markets and their fluid trends. His emphasis was on establishing himself as a direct cyber resource for retail brokers to identify key risks and facilitate the implementation of best practices to better protect their insureds against a future cyber-attack.

Michael joined the CRC Cyber Risk team in 2021 as an Inside Broker, providing the best possible outcome for CRC’s well-established retail insurance partners through innovative risk analysis, reliable service, top market access, and more.