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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.

Terry has been in the insurance industry since 1979.  In an attempt to enjoy a little slower paced life he has joined the Correll Insurance Group of agencies as the President of Coastal Plains Insurance, LLC (CPI) and South East Coastal Underwriters (SECU) in beautiful Hilton Head Island, South Carolina. Terry is part owner and responsible for the day to day operations of CPI and SECU. 

Prior to Terry's joining CPI he was owner and CEO of Florida Insurance Educators , Inc. which is an insurance education and consulting firm that in conjunction with Florida  Insurance School worked with state and national organizations provides a variety of educational courses and consulting services.

Terry continues to accept national speaking engagements and writes technical articles for a variety of state and national insurance publications. In his spare time Terry is also recognized by Federal and State courts as an expert on insurance coverages and serves as an expert witness.

Terry began his career in 1979 in Florida. The majority of this time was spent as the principal of an independent insurance agency in Florida where he specialized in a variety of Professional Liability programs as well as designing several specialty programs serving the Construction industry.

Terry has also worked with the Florida Department of Insurance where he was the Administrator of Agents Licensing. His primary responsibilities included the approving individuals for agent licensing and supervision the writing of all state insurance examinations. During this time he also represented the state of Florida on the National Test Development Committee which sets standards for agents licensing examinations.

Currently, Terry holds a Certified Insurance Counselor (CIC) designation and is a National Faculty Member of the Society. In addition, he serves as the Educational Consultant in the States of North Carolina.  Terry also holds a Chartered Property and Casualty Underwriting (CPCU) and Construction Risk and Insurance Specialist CRIS) professional designations.

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

Timothy D. Christ, MBA is the VP at Claimatic, an InsurTech company that serves several major insurers by helping them accelerate their claims process.  He published a book on insurance in 2018, Becoming a World-Class Expert: The Business of Forensic Engineering, and the 2^nd book in 2020 on business and technology that became an Amazon #1 New Release.  He was recognized as a Power 50, one of the 50 most influential insurance professionals in Latin America.  He is a frequent contributor to National Underwriter, a 5-time speaker at the Insurance Risk Management Institute’s (IRMI) Annual Energy Conference, speaker at various Risk Insurance Management Society (RIMS) events, Property Loss Research Bureau (PLRB), and others.  He has been interviewed by NBC News and has appeared on numerous insurance podcasts, including SpotOnInsurance, The Claims Podcast, and Trendbreakers.  He has personally delivered hundreds of hours of Department of Insurance (DOI) Continuing Education (CE) presentations.

Christ brings 20 years’ international experience in the insurance industry, having personally investigated hundreds of insurance claims, directly involved in many mediations and trials, and then later managing thousands of insurance claims investigations.  He built companies in Canada, Latin America, and the US, and is a frequent guest to Lloyd’s in London.  His vast experience in all P&C claims types, including homeowner all the way to managing billion-dollar losses, provides him unparalleled insight into how the claims process responds to claim events.  He worked on multiple Catastrophe events, including the Texas Mold Claims Crisis in 2001, Hurricane Wilma in Mexico in 2005, Katrina, Ike, the Chilean earthquakes in 2010, Thailand flooding in 2011, Calgary flooding in 2013, Hurricanes Sandy & Irene, and others.

Ian Adams is associate vice president of state affairs with the R Street Institute, responsible for coordinating R Street’s outreach and engagement at the state and local level. He also is involved in the institute’s insurance research, matters related to next-generation transportation and is a frequent commentator on the disruptive impact of burgeoning technologies on law and regulation.

Ian rejoined R Street, for whom he’d previously worked as Western region director, on a full-time basis in January 2017. He was most recently a public policy associate at the international law firm of Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe LLP, where he maintained a national insurance regulatory practice specialized in developing creative solutions to business problems that incorporated legislative and regulatory strategies.

Earlier in his career, Ian was a Jesse M. Unruh Assembly Fellow with the office of California state Assemblyman Curt Hagman, R-Chino Hills, while Hagman served as vice chairman of the California Assembly Insurance Committee. He also served as a legal extern with the office of Oregon state Rep. Bruce Hanna, R-Roseburg, who was then co-speaker of the Oregon House of Representatives. Ian also worked as a law clerk for California’s largest insurance trade association.

Ian is a graduate of Seattle University, with bachelor’s degrees in history and philosophy, and received his law degree from the University of Oregon. He is a member of the California and Illinois bars.

Ian lives in a suburb of Sacramento, California with his wife, Ruth Yang.

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.

Precious Norman-Walton is the President of Lovejoy Risk Management Corp, out of Dallas, TX. With over 15 years of insurance industry experience, she has served in Personal Lines Claims, Commerical Underwriting, and Agency Management.

Prior to her current role, Precious was Vice President of Account Management for Insureon, Vice President of Agency Operations of Lucky Truck, and Chief Operating Officer for Diamond National Insurance Advisors. She has also served as the President of the Dallas Chapter CPCU Society in 2020.

Precious Norman-Walton holds active licenses as a Risk Manager, Property & Casualty Agent, Life & Health Agent, and All Lines Adjuster, as we as six insurance designations and is a SHRM Certified Professional in Human Resources.

Christopher J. Boggs, CPCU, ARM, ALCM, LPCS, AAI, APA, CWCA, CRIS, AINS, president of Boggs Risk & Insurance Consulting (BRIC) with a focus on education, training, risk and claims consulting with insurance agents and insurance carriers, began the practice of insurance in 1990.

During his nearly three-and-a-half-decade insurance career, Boggs has authored over 2,000 insurance and risk management-related articles on a wide range of topics. Additionally, Boggs has written 15 insurance and risk management books including:

• "The Insurance Professional's Practical Guide to Workers' Compensation: From History through Audit," (now in its second edition);
• "Business Income Insurance Demystified: The Simplified Guide to Time Element Coverages," (now in its third edition);
• "Property and Casualty Insurance Concepts Simplified: The Ultimate 'How to' Insurance Guide for Agents, Brokers, Underwriters and Adjusters;"
• "Wow! I Never Knew That! 12 of the Most Misunderstood and Misused P&C Coverages, Concepts and Exclusions;"
• "Insurance, Risk & Risk Management! The Insurance Professional's Guide to Risk Management and Insurance;"

Boggs is a regular speaker at industry events, having taught or spoken nearly 1,000 times. This includes sessions for the National Association of Mutual Insurance Companies (NAMIC), the National Society of Insurance Premium Auditors (NSIPA), the American Association of Managing General Agents (AAMGA), the Institute of Work Comp Professionals (IWCP), the Chartered Property Casualty Underwriter (CPCU) Society and numerous independent insurance agent state association meetings. He has also earned numerous professional accolades including the 2017 Institute and Faculty of Actuaries (IFoA) Brian Hey Prize and the 2019 Casualty Actuarial Society (CAS) Charles A. Hachemeister Prize as part of a professional collaboration with a diverse group of professionals.

His professional background includes work as a risk management consultant, loss control representative, insurance producer, claims manager, journalist and columnist, quality assurance specialist, and insurance coverage product manager.

Boggs earned a Bachelor of Science in journalism at Liberty University in Lynchburg, Virginia, and holds nine professional designations.

Celebrated keynoter, facilitator, author and ICF-certified workplace productivity and business leader coach, Marsha Egan is devoted to energizing people to make the best use of their time so that they can lead their lives and achieve great stuff.

Focused on enabling growth through people, she applies her experience and skills to helping her clients achieve their personal, professional, and organizational goals.

Marsha Egan, CPCU, CSP, PCC, is CEO of the professional coaching firm, The Egan Group, Inc, which she started. She is an ATHENA Foundation Award recipient, one of PA's 50 Best Women in Business, and past president of the CPCU Society. A 25-yr. veteran of corporate & volunteer America, Ms. Egan intuitively reinvents leadership, by igniting leaders and entrepreneurs with positive change, interpersonal impact and innovation.

Chris Cline has been fascinated by science, design, and the arts his entire life. He’s also spent most of his personal and professional life as an outlier. This combination of traits provides insight into his diverse interests and approach to life. 

Chris began his career as a graphic designer at an insurance company that afforded him many opportunities to learn, grow, and experience many facets of the business world. A senior executive once said to Chris, “I’m not sure if you are the most creative analytic I’ve ever met, or the most analytic creative…but, you do not think like most in this industry.”  He has chosen to embrace this observation and acknowledge how that sentiment has influenced and impacted so many areas of his life.

Throughout his career, Chris has been a part of and led several incredible teams, he co-developed and hosted an award-winning podcast, and was presented with the Independence Bell Award as industry person of the year by the Ohio Insurance Agents Association in 2022 for his passion and dedication to the insurance industry. 

Chris’s personal life has been even more rewarding. He currently resides in Ohio with his wonderful wife and son where they enjoy camping as much as they can. Though he has other deep personal passions across many diverse activities such as BMX, playing music, classic cars, and running, none of them are as important to Chris as the time he spends with his family. 

Learn more about Chris and the journey that created the Inertia of Legacy at https://inertiaoflegacy.godaddysites.com.