Hegarty In As NAMIC Chair, Chamness As CEO

Mr. Hegarty, formerly chairman-elect, will be succeeded in that post by Wayne F. White, president of Home Mutual Fire Insurance Company of Conway, Ark.

The chairman's position, with a one-year term, was previously held by John Fisher, president of Auto-Owners Insurance Company in Lansing, Mich.

Mr. Hegarty, president and chief executive officer at the Dedham, Mass.-based Norfolk & Dedham Group, will occupy the NAMIC chairmanship until next September, when the trade association is scheduled to convene its annual meeting in Washington, D.C.

"I very much look forward to the opportunity to serve our members. One of our key goals is to continue to be effective in reforming state regulation so that we can avoid discussions and trends to centralize more authority in Washington, D.C., where we think it will be ineffective and potentially harmful to most of our members," Mr. Hegarty told National Underwriter.

Mr. Chamness, in addition to overseeing the day-to-day management at Indianapolis-based NAMIC, will serve as chairman for NAMIC's Assurance Partners Bank and NAMICO, which offers professional liability insurance for association members.

Mr. Chamness, who joined NAMIC in 1995 and was previously the association's executive vice president, succeeds Larry Forrester, who is retiring after serving as NAMIC's president for the past 15 years. Mr. Forrester first joined the association 33 years ago.

Commenting on his new appointment, Mr. Chamness said: "We have a very strong foundation at NAMIC, so I am fortunate to be taking on this new role at this time. Our membership is growing–we added more than a dozen new companies in the past year and NAMIC members represent some 40 percent of direct written premiums in U.S. property-casualty market."

He also added that one of NAMIC's main goals in the coming year will be to help reform and modernize state insurance regulation. "The most important issue is creating a better, more modernized form of state insurance regulation. We must help reform state regulation so that we can save state regulation," he said.

"We believe state regulation is good for our member companies," Mr. Chamness commented. "Still, our efforts in the next year will include getting more involved in various states and working with legislatures and regulators to create an open-competition environment that we believe is absolutely necessary to create a better marketplace for property-casualty insurance."