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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.

Bob is a Claims Manager with Academic Risk Resources & Insurance, LLC. He brings over 20 years of professional experience in commercial multi-line claims consulting and risk management. He also has over ten years of claims advocacy experience on OCIP and large construction losses.

In addition, Bob teaches professional development insurance courses for the Insurance Library of Boston and Polestar Performance Programs, Inc. Bob also has extensive experience in large loss claim management and has been retained as an expert witness by both plaintiff and defense attorneys on insurance disputes in litigation.

Bob’s present responsibilities include: complex coverage analysis, working with insurers to obtain proper and timely claim settlements, conducting multi-line claim reviews to monitor the reserving and establishing claims handling protocols of his clients’ insurers and TPAs.

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.

Ms. Segale began her insurance career with an insurance broker in Northern California as a commercial lines manager and producer. Marjorie formed her own insurance agency a few years later, handling all lines of insurance. After the sale of her agency, she joined the staff of Insurance Skills Center, Inc., located in Huntington Beach, Californai. She is now founder and President of Segale Consulting Services, LLC and provides a wide variety of services to the insurance industry, including account review, agency audits, strategic planning, and forensic claims analysis. Ms. Segale is also a principal and founding member of the Insurance Community Center, LLC, a web-based resource and eduction on-line site for the insurance industry. In addition, Ms. Segale acts as an expert witness on agent and broker standard of care. Marjorie is a National Faculty member for the National Alliance and conducts education courses on a wide variety of subject matter across the nation.

Joseph Junfola has spent over 40 years as an insurance claims professional. He has specialized in long-term exposure, or continuous property damage/bodily injury/toxic tort claims on a national basis for close to 30 years. He has specialized in construction defect, product liability, and design professional liability claims, including construction accident claims, particularly third-party-over actions in New York.

In his early days, he handled automobile bodily injury claims, both on a primary and umbrella basis, in the State of New Jersey. He first qualified as an expert in the evaluation of automobile bodily injury claims in Federal Court in the early 1990's.

He has since formed Junfola Claim Consulting Services to provide coverage and claim analysis, policy language review, litigation support, and more. He has also joined the Insurance Risk Management Institute as an Expert Commentator.

A staunch believer in continuous learning and improvement, Joe has earned the following professional designations: CPCU, RPLU, RPLU+, SCLA, AIC, ASLI, ARe, AU, ARM, CRIS, AIS, MLIS, AIC-M, and AIDA. His continual drive for education has seen him earn these additional certificates: Executive Certificate in Negotiations from the Mendoza College of Business, University of Notre Dame, the Home Inspection Certificate through Rutgers University and the National Institute of Building Inspectors, and the Certificate in Law and Legal Process from Southern New Hampshire University.

He has published several articles and an eBook, Construction Defect Claims, A Handbook for Insurance, Risk Management, Construction, & Design Professionals.

Brennan Quintus is the Chief Executive Officer of the North Dakota Insurance Reserve Fund (NDIRF), the source of risk services for North Dakota’s cities, counties, school districts, and other political subdivisions. Prior to being appointed CEO, Brennan led the NDIRF’s underwriting and loss control departments.

Brennan holds an undergraduate degree and an MBA from the University of Mary in Bismarck, ND and is currently pursuing a law degree from Concord Law School, an affiliate of the Purdue University System. He also holds many insurance designations, including the Chartered Property Casualty Underwriter (CPCU) and Certified Insurance Counselor (CIC) designations.

In addition to his role at the NDIRF, Brennan also serves as the President of the ND Roughrider Chapter of the CPCU Society and as an Executive Committee Member for the ND HR Collaborative.

Richard is an insurance industry veteran, serving in various roles over over 30 years. He started his career as a Casualty Underwriter and has held roles including Underwriting Specialist, Senior Alternative Risk Underwriter, and AVP of Underwriting. He is currently the Co-Founder of Underwriter's Resource, LLC, where he is a CE instructor in several states west of the Mississippi.

He speaks for wholesale brokers, presents for the CPCU society, and is a guest speaker at Glendale Community College in Glendale, AZ.

Barry Rabkin’s forty-plus year insurance career has been driven by curiosity and passion to analyze the “why and what” about technology’s potential impact on the insurance industry. He worked for and consulted to insurers as well as having launched and led insurance industry analyst practices at IDC, The Meta Group, and, Omdia. His research encompasses customer experience, marketing and distribution, channel management, mobility, geospatial, and IoT. He has delivered scores of presentations globally to insurance and technology audiences concerning the role technology should play in the industry to get and keep customers. 

Timothy D. Dodge, AU, ARM, CPCU is the Assistant Vice President of Research for Independent Insurance Agents & Brokers of New York, Inc., headquartered in Dewitt, New York. Tim is responsible for answering members’ questions about insurance technical, legal, regulatory, and legislative matters, and for all communications with the media. He also writes for IIABNY’s weekly newsletter; maintains sections of the IIABNY Web site; writes a blog about insurance technical matters; hosted an award-winning video podcast; and teaches continuing education classes. Since 2008, he has served on national committees that work with ISO to improve coverage forms. He previously worked as a commercial lines underwriter and underwriting trainer for CNA Insurance in Syracuse. He is a graduate of the State University of New York College at Brockport and received the Chartered Property Casualty Underwriter designation in 1998. He has held his current position with IIABNY since 2002. 

Craig Andrews is a forty-year veteran of the property-casualty industry with significant experience as a producer, independent agency owner, insurer commercial field production underwriter, coverage instructor, insurer commercial and personal underwriting and sales manager, expert witness, home office commercial underwriting manager and commercial product development officer.   He’s made perhaps hundreds of coverage presentations to diverse industry audiences throughout the country and has twice been interviewed by George Nordhaus for his “Monday Morning” webinars. 

Craig holds the CPCU, ARM, AAI, AU-M, ARe, AMIM and ASLI professional designations.  He has earned The Institute’s Award for Academic Excellence for both the ASLI and AMIM programs.  Craig is a graduate of Indiana University and a U.S. Navy veteran.