What’s New: In brief (September 06, 2006)

Kingsway Financial Services Inc. has appointed Denis Cloutier to the position of vice president and chief actuary, Canadian Operations as well as Tom Duffy to the position of vice president, Kingsway America Inc., and chief actuary, U.S. Operations. Cloutier joined Kingsway Financial over five years ago and offers over 24 years of experience in the property & casualty insurance industry. Cloutier’s experience in the P&C market is mainly in the personal and commercial lines pricing and reserving, standard and non-standard business. Since joining Kingsway as chief actuary, Cloutier has held the responsibility of pricing and reserving activities, working mostly with the Company’s Canadian subsidiaries. He is a fellow of the Casualty Actuarial Society and of the Canadian Institute of Actuaries as well as a member of the American Academy of Actuaries. Duffy recently joined Kingsway as vice president, Kingsway America Inc., and chief actuary, U.S. Operations. Offering over 30 years of experience in the P&C insurance industry, Duffy’s mainly served in the personal and commercial lines pricing, reserving, reinsurance, risk management and financial reporting areas. Prior to joining Kingsway, Duffy spent over three years as a consultant in a major actuarial practice, advising clients on reserving and pricing issues, and acted as the appointed actuary for several companies. He is a fellow of the Casualty Actuarial Society and a member of the American Academy of Actuaries. Based in Chicago, Duffy will be responsible for reserving and pricing activities for the Company’s U.S. subsidiaries.

Risk Management Solutions (RMS) has opened an office in Zurich, Switzerland. RMS says this new office will service its growing client base in continental Europe and continues to explain that the base location in Zurich serves as a major European center for insurance and finance. “The landscape of risk faced by insurers, reinsurers, and intermediaries is changing and expanding rapidly in a multi-dimensional way, and there is an increasing need for more holistic approaches to modeling and for the modeling of new threats,” Jrg Mller, vice president of the European industry practice at RMS and head of the new RMS Zurich operation, says. The suite of traditional natural catastrophe models is being complemented by loss modeling solutions for terrorism and infectious diseases under RMS’s underwriting and portfolio management platforms. This offers a comprehensive view of today’s changing risks. RMS says because both of these threats represent high European exposures, the new office will enable the Company to work more closely with local clients to better understand and manage these risks.