Saunders successor to Royal & SunAlliance top spot

With news of the retirement of Royal & SunAlliance Canada Group CEO Larry Simmons, Rowan Saunders has been named to take over the top spot in the company.Saunders was most recently president of Royal’s Agilon Financial, as well as vice president of personal insurance for Royal. He has been with the company since 1987.”Mr. Saunders has been key in leading the Canadian personal insurance business in a successful turnaround in financial performance and has grown the Agilon business organically by $80 million over three years,” notes Simon Lee, chief executive of international business for parent company Royal & SunAlliance Insurance Group plc.Simmons, who announced his retirement last month, will return to the U.S., the company reports.The announcement follows last week’s news CEO Stu Kistruck will become the new president and CEO of Kingsway’s York Fire and Casualty Insurance Co. Kistruck has over 30 years experience in the industry, most recently with Pilot Insurance Co. Although Kistruck resigned his post at Pilot when the company had to report errors in its reserves for 2002, Kingsway Financial Services CEO Bill Star is confident Kistruck will help turn around York Fire & Casualty’s fortunes. “Stuart is well respected in the insurance community in Canada and we anticipate that he will build York into a much larger and more profitable company during his tenure.” The company also promoted Dennis Fielding to vice president of Kingsway Financial Services. He has been with subsidiary Kingsway General Insurance since 1998.