FINREP Florida Oct 23-25, 2023

Since 2007, Brandon has been working with auditing insurance, governmental, not-for-profit, and commercial entities, as well as employee benefit plans. Brandon has extensive experience providing assurance and consulting services to insurance companies and related entities. A graduate of Carson-Newman College with a Bachelor of Science in Accounting, Brandon has specific experience documenting the major transaction cycles for insurance companies, assessing control risk, and design and implementation of the control tests of the premiums, claims, reinsurance, and treasury transaction cycles.

Brandon also has experience related to inventory tracking, observation, and reconciliation. He has provided a range of services which include financial statement audits, internal control studies, agreed-upon procedures, reviews, and compilations. His responsibilities as an auditor consist of planning, fieldwork, and report preparation in the areas of financial and compliance audits.

Arthur Randolph is a principal and consulting actuary with Pinnacle Actuarial Resources managing the firm’s Atlanta, Georgia office. He has been in the insurance industry since 1998 and has been consulting since 2001. Art’s consulting career has focused on homeowners, commercial property, commercial multiple peril, workers’ compensation, medical professional liability, general liability, and commercial and personal automobile exposures.

Art provides actuarial consulting services to property and casualty (re)insurers, self-insured entities, risk retention groups, and captive insurers. In particular, he serves as the Appointed Actuary for numerous property insurance companies domiciled in Florida and in other weather catastrophe-prone states. Art’s core services include reserving, ratemaking, and risk transfer testing.

Art is a Fellow of the Casualty Actuarial Society and a Member of the American Academy of Actuaries (AAA) and holds additional insurance designations. He is actively involved with the Florida Chamber of Commerce and is a member of the AAA P/C Extreme Events and Property Lines Committee.

Christopher Howell is a CPA specializing in the insurance industry.  In addition, he is one of the leaders of the firm’s insurance practice.

Since 2000, Chris has been providing accounting, auditing, reporting, and consulting services to clients primarily in the insurance industry. His services provided include planning, supervising, and directing multiple audits of insurance companies, their affiliates, and parent companies. In addition, he has provided customized services including internal control advisory services and risk assessments in data privacy. He has also provided services in vendor management and underwriting.

Chris is a member of the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA) National Association of Insurance Commissioners (NAIC) Task Force Panel of Experts. This panel helps resolve accounting and reporting issues for insurance entities. The panel also helps review revisions to AICPA Accounting and Auditing Guides.

Chris was previously Vice President and Controller for a start-up multi-line insurance group. There he designed and implemented all accounting and financial reporting mechanisms to facilitate decision-making and comply with financial and regulatory reporting requirements.

In addition to being a CPA, Chris has earned the designation of Certified Internal Auditor (CIA) and Certification in Risk Management Assurance (CRMA) from the Institute of Internal Auditors. He has also earned the Chartered Global Management Accountant (CGMA) designation from the AICPA. Chris has also spoken on Enterprise Risk Management (ERM).

Dr. Charles Nyce is the department chair and Dr. William T. Hold Associate Professor of Risk Management and Insurance in the Department of Risk Management/Insurance, Real Estate and Legal Studies at Florida State University’s College of Business. Nyce teaches a variety of courses at both the undergraduate and graduate level. Nyce’s main research area is catastrophic risk financing, and he has authored numerous articles on a variety of risk management and insurance topics, including title insurance, IPOs, enterprise risk management, predictive analytics and natural hazards.

Nyce came to FSU in 2009 as the associate director of the Florida Catastrophic Storm Risk Management Center and an assistant in the Department of Risk Management/Insurance, Real Estate and Legal Studies. His previous academic experience includes LaSalle University, University of Hartford and the University of Georgia. He also served as director of Curriculum and senior director of Knowledge Resources at the American Institute for CPCU.

Nyce received his bachelor’s degree in mathematics from LaSalle University and his master’s and doctoral degrees in insurance and risk management from The Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania.

Wes Strickland serves as outside counsel to the Florida Property & Casualty Association. Mr. Strickland is a shareholder with the Colodny Fass law firm, where he heads the Insurance Regulatory and Corporate Transactions Practice in the firm’s Tallahassee office. He has been ranked by Chambers & Partners as one of Florida's top insurance lawyers.

With over two decades of experience handling insurance regulatory law and complex corporate transactions, he provides counsel to both domestic and international insurers and reinsurers, among others. He represents property and casualty insurers, as well as life and health entities, self-insurance funds, and various insurance-related entities in diverse regulatory matters.

Mr. Strickland has supervised multi-state compliance surveys and licensing matters for insurance companies, third party administrators, managing general agents, wholesale brokers, reinsurance intermediaries, insurance agencies, and manufacturers and sellers of service contracts and extended warranties. He routinely handles issues such as insurance holding company compliance, market conduct and financial examinations, company formation, multi-state expansion, corporate amendments, investment limitations, credit for reinsurance, and affiliate transactions. He has managed a wide variety of complex corporate and transactional matters for domestic and international insurers and holding companies and investors, including mergers and acquisitions, start-ups, stock offerings, restructurings, mutual holding company conversions, joint ventures, and reinsurance transactions.

Mr. Strickland also prepares and negotiates a wide variety of contracts and agreements, including managing general agent agreements, third party administrator agreements, insurance agency and broker agreements, cost allocation agreements, IT vendor agreements, and joint insurance marketing and affinity marketing agreements.

A member of The Florida Bar, Mr. Strickland is a graduate of Florida State University College of Law and Florida State University.

Andrew is the Vice President - Controller for Citizens and has over 20 years of financial and accounting experience within the insurance industry. His primary duties at Citizens include directing the accounting policy of the organization, oversight of financial reporting and related regulatory filings, budget, treasury and investment operations, and management of the external audit process. Prior to joining Citizens, Andrew served as an assurance services manager with a public accounting firm providing audit, advisory and consulting services to a variety of Florida‐domiciled insurance carriers primarily within the property and casualty sector. Andrew holds a Bachelor's degree in Accounting from Valdosta State University and a Master's degree in Accounting from Auburn University. Andrew is a Certified Public Accountant licensed in Florida and is a CFA® Charterholder. 

Since 2010, Stephen has been providing tax compliance services and consulting services for multiple entity types. His responsibilities include coordination of the insurance tax compliance practice, which includes federal and multi-state tax return compliance, premium tax compliance, income tax provisions on the statutory basis of accounting, consolidated income tax provisions on the GAAP basis of accounting, and representing taxpayers during the examination process with the Internal Revenue Service and state departments of revenue.

He has experience assisting clients with planning issues including: effective tax rate analysis, multi-state tax planning and analysis, distribution and dividend planning, and research for various other tax issues.

Guy has dedicated 15 years of his career to world class innovation practices, as well as the events, markets, and technologies making the greatest impact on risk and risk management.

Guy’s distinct advisory work specializes in:

• Opportunity discovery and solution development resulting in significant growth (expense savings + new revenues) On an aggregated basis, Guy’s innovation clients have generated new capital in excess of $8B;

• Helping client entities face goals, problems, & circumstances deemed “intractable”, “unthinkable”, “unimaginable”, that become imminent and real. Practice includes: creating new markets, answering the questions of “can it be done?” & “should we do it?”; Pandemic simulations and recovery models; U.S. Middle East Relations; Climate & Resiliency; P&C Market Restoration.

Guy serves State & Federal Legislators & Regulators, foreign governments, startups and established firms on the discovery, development, and deployment of exponential solutions. Guy’s experiences include working with premier global innovators such as IDEO, Global Business Network, X -Prize Foundation, Google-X, Innosight, and Singularity University. Past clients in the public sector include State Legislators, U.S. Dept of Treasury, French Cabinet, New Zealand’s Cabinet, U.S. Dept Ag (U.S.AID).

As an innovation architect, Guy’s risk-centered clients have generated new capital by successfully inventing and launching new solutions, revenue streams, and cutting insurance product development times from months to weeks. Guy was also engaged as a subject matter expert by AM Best in the development of the Innovation Rating Criteria announced in 2019, and Demotech ratings agency throughout 2021-2022.

Beginning in May 2020, Guy continues to support the restoration of Florida’s collapsed residential P&C market. This work has included engagements with insurers, reinsurers, insurance investors, ratings agencies, members of Florida’s Senate, Florida Cabinet, Lobbyist and business press.  Outputs include material contributions to multiple legislative reforms as well as published reports.

Rick Harper received his BA in Economics from Guilford College in 1978, and an MA in 1986 and a PhD in 1989, both in Economics from Duke University. Rick worked as a professional economist from 1980 – 1984 at Research Triangle Institute in Research Triangle Park, NC, and at the University of West Florida (UWF) from 1989 until retiring in 2017. From 1996 – 2011 (except sabbatical and other time away) he served as Director of UWF’s Haas Center for Business Research and Economic Development, conducting numerous studies of the local, regional, and state economies and economic sectors. He then served as Executive Director of the UWF Office of Economic Development and Engagement, overseeing activities of the Haas Center and of the State Director’s Office of the Florida Small Business Development Center Network.  

Rick served as the Senior Policy Advisor for Economic Affairs for the Florida Senate from 2012 until 2014. He then returned to UWF as Assistant, then Associate, Vice President for Research and Economic Development and served as the University’s Chief Research Officer during 2015 and 2016. He has offered expert economics testimony in litigation and served as the economic expert for the State of Florida from inception until completion in its economic damages litigation with BP. Since retiring from UWF in 2017, Rick has served as the Economic Advisor to Triumph Gulf Coast, Inc., providing advice and support to the Triumph Board of Directors as it seeks to distribute $1.5 bn in Deepwater Horizon damages funds to projects that will grow and diversify the Northwest Florida economy.  

Adam is an Executive Vice President and Branch Manager of Gallagher Re’s Tampa office.  He is responsible for servicing clients and production efforts in the southeast and has extensive experience working with Florida property insurance companies with a secondary focus on the InsurTech space.

He began his career with Benfield Blanch in 2004 as a servicing broker on the medical and legal professional liability team.  In 2006, Adam joined Collins and relocated to Florida in early 2007 to focus on the Florida property insurance market.  Collins was acquired by Guy Carpenter in 2009 and Adam joined Willis Re in late 2017, which became Gallagher Re at the end of 2021.  He holds a bachelors of science in economics from the University of Wisconsin – Madison and the Associate of Reinsurance (ARe) designation.

Dr. Charles Nyce is the department chair and Dr. William T. Hold Associate Professor of Risk Management and Insurance in the Department of Risk Management/Insurance, Real Estate and Legal Studies at Florida State University’s College of Business. Nyce teaches a variety of courses at both the undergraduate and graduate level. Nyce’s main research area is catastrophic risk financing, and he has authored numerous articles on a variety of risk management and insurance topics, including title insurance, IPOs, enterprise risk management, predictive analytics and natural hazards.

Nyce came to FSU in 2009 as the associate director of the Florida Catastrophic Storm Risk Management Center and an assistant in the Department of Risk Management/Insurance, Real Estate and Legal Studies. His previous academic experience includes LaSalle University, University of Hartford and the University of Georgia. He also served as director of Curriculum and senior director of Knowledge Resources at the American Institute for CPCU.

Nyce received his bachelor’s degree in mathematics from LaSalle University and his master’s and doctoral degrees in insurance and risk management from The Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania.

Catherine began working in public accounting when she joined Thomas Howell Ferguson in January 2015.  Her experience in public accounting includes providing assurance and accounting services. Her industries served include corporate, governmental, insurance, and not-for-profit organizations. The majority of Catherine’s career has been concentrated on serving the insurance and governmental industries.  Her responsibilities consist of engagement planning, performance of fieldwork, internal control testing, and assistance with report preparation.

Catherine has experience in auditing insurance organizations, providing financial statement and compliance audits in accordance with auditing standards, audits of statutory financial statements, reinsurance accounting, reviews, compilations, designing and implementing control tests for insurance companies, compiling quarterly and annual financial statements under a statutory accounting basis, internal control evaluation and analysis, agreed-upon procedures, consulting, technical research and documentation of accounting standards, and performing SOC 1 Type 2 and SOC 2 Type 2 engagements.

Christopher Howell is a CPA specializing in the insurance industry.  In addition, he is one of the leaders of the firm’s insurance practice.

Since 2000, Chris has been providing accounting, auditing, reporting, and consulting services to clients primarily in the insurance industry. His services provided include planning, supervising, and directing multiple audits of insurance companies, their affiliates, and parent companies. In addition, he has provided customized services including internal control advisory services and risk assessments in data privacy. He has also provided services in vendor management and underwriting.

Chris is a member of the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA) National Association of Insurance Commissioners (NAIC) Task Force Panel of Experts. This panel helps resolve accounting and reporting issues for insurance entities. The panel also helps review revisions to AICPA Accounting and Auditing Guides.

Chris was previously Vice President and Controller for a start-up multi-line insurance group. There he designed and implemented all accounting and financial reporting mechanisms to facilitate decision-making and comply with financial and regulatory reporting requirements.

In addition to being a CPA, Chris has earned the designation of Certified Internal Auditor (CIA) and Certification in Risk Management Assurance (CRMA) from the Institute of Internal Auditors. He has also earned the Chartered Global Management Accountant (CGMA) designation from the AICPA. Chris has also spoken on Enterprise Risk Management (ERM).

Gary re-joined Pinnacle in 2022 after two years with Willis Towers Watson. Prior to Pinnacle, Gary was a pricing actuary for three of the top 10 insurance companies. His experience includes standard homeowners rate indications, commercial auto rate indications, and reinsurance treaty pricing for personal and commercial lines. He also has experience in reserving analyses for commercial auto and market trend analyses for commercial auto and workers’ compensation.

Gary has worked extensively on the application of advanced statistical modeling techniques to the insurance process. His experience in predictive analytics applications include rating and underwriting plan design, homeowners by peril analysis, auto vehicle characteristics analysis and scorecard development, and territory boundary development. Gary has made numerous presentations on topics relating to analytics and its application to insurance.

Gary has assisted companies in the design and implementation of rating plans and underwriting scorecards, assisted clients with incorporating data sources into classification plans, and enhanced territory classification utilizing advanced analytical methodologies for client companies. He has also designed custom vehicle classification scorecards, designed and maintained inspections prioritization scorecards, and peer-reviewed and advised companies on their analytics processes.

Michael Yaworsky was nominated by Governor DeSantis and appointed by the Financial Services Commission to serve as the Florida Insurance Commissioner in March 2023.
Prior to his nomination, Mr. Yaworsky served as the Vice Chairman of the Florida Gaming Control Commission and served as the Florida Office of Insurance Regulation’s (OIR) Chief of Staff from 2017 – 2021. As OIR’s Chief of Staff, he assisted in overseeing one of the largest insurance markets in the world by serving as a policy advisor to the Commissioner and managing agency fiscal matters and administrative operations.

Prior to joining OIR, Mr. Yaworsky served as Legal Counsel for the Georgia Office of Insurance and Safety Fire Commissioner, where he was responsible for advising the Commissioner and senior staff on policy decisions and performing administrative, regulatory and litigation duties associated with the legal unit. He also served as Counsel for the Office of President Pro Tempore in the Georgia Senate from 2014 – 2015.
Mr. Yaworsky honed his skills serving the state of Florida in a variety of government, regulatory and legislative positions from 2006 - 2011. This included working as Chief of Staff with the Florida Department of Business and Professional Regulation and Director of Gubernatorial Appointments and Cabinet Aide at the Executive Office of the Governor.

Mr. Yaworsky has a Bachelor’s degree in Social Science from Florida State University and a Juris Doctor degree from Samford University’s Cumberland School of Law. He has been a member of the Georgia Bar since 2014.

Mr. Yaworsky also serves on the Board of Directors for Family Promise of the Big Bend. Family Promise of the Big Bend is a nonprofit organization dedicated to ending homelessness in the Big Bend through leadership, education, advocacy, and the provision of quality services.

Corey Neal is the Executive Director of the Florida Insurance Guaranty Association (FIGA).  He is responsible for the day-to-day operations of the Association consistent with the interests of both the insurance industry and the FIGA Act. In Corey's opinion, public trust is fundamental to a stable insurance market, and FIGA's role is to restore policyholder confidence when insurance companies fail. Over the past 18 months under Corey’s leadership, FIGA has handled over 50,000 claims from 11 company insolvencies.

Prior to his current role, Corey worked in a variety of insurance fields. In 2006, he was tapped to help launch an insurance startup named SageSure Insurance Managers, which grew to become one of the largest privately owned MGUs in the United States. At SageSure, he helped design and develop a successful business model as COO that served over 250,000 customers across twelve states. Corey began his insurance career over 20 years ago as the Controller of Citizens Property Insurance Corporation, where he first gained experience managing claim operations. He helped establish Citizens' Catastrophe Claims Center that handled more than 200,000 hurricane claims between 2004 and 2005. Before joining Citizens, Corey worked as an audit manager at Thomas Howell Ferguson, PA, providing financial services to insurance companies, agencies, and third party administrators. 

He holds a Bachelor of Science in Accounting and Finance from Florida State University, and when not working, he enjoys hobby farming and watching baseball.

John Schaefer, CFA, is AAM’s Chief Executive Officer and Chairman of the Board as well as a Principal, with 34 years of investment experience.  Mr. Schaefer oversees all functions within the firm and manages a number of P&C and Life insurance company portfolios for AAM clients.  

Mr. Schaefer joined AAM after working as Managing Director of the Insurance Asset Management unit of Zurich Scudder Investments (ZSI), where he was responsible for eight Portfolio Managers in the management of $82 billion of insurance assets. Additionally, he is a CFA Charterholder. He also earned a BBA from the University of Notre Dame and an MBA from the University of Chicago. 

Catherine began working in public accounting when she joined Thomas Howell Ferguson in January 2015.  Her experience in public accounting includes providing assurance and accounting services. Her industries served include corporate, governmental, insurance, and not-for-profit organizations. The majority of Catherine’s career has been concentrated on serving the insurance and governmental industries.  Her responsibilities consist of engagement planning, performance of fieldwork, internal control testing, and assistance with report preparation.

Catherine has experience in auditing insurance organizations, providing financial statement and compliance audits in accordance with auditing standards, audits of statutory financial statements, reinsurance accounting, reviews, compilations, designing and implementing control tests for insurance companies, compiling quarterly and annual financial statements under a statutory accounting basis, internal control evaluation and analysis, agreed-upon procedures, consulting, technical research and documentation of accounting standards, and performing SOC 1 Type 2 and SOC 2 Type 2 engagements.

Since 2007, Brandon has been working with auditing insurance, governmental, not-for-profit, and commercial entities, as well as employee benefit plans. Brandon has extensive experience providing assurance and consulting services to insurance companies and related entities. A graduate of Carson-Newman College with a Bachelor of Science in Accounting, Brandon has specific experience documenting the major transaction cycles for insurance companies, assessing control risk, and design and implementation of the control tests of the premiums, claims, reinsurance, and treasury transaction cycles.

Brandon also has experience related to inventory tracking, observation, and reconciliation. He has provided a range of services which include financial statement audits, internal control studies, agreed-upon procedures, reviews, and compilations. His responsibilities as an auditor consist of planning, fieldwork, and report preparation in the areas of financial and compliance audits.

Since 2010, Stephen has been providing tax compliance services and consulting services for multiple entity types. His responsibilities include coordination of the insurance tax compliance practice, which includes federal and multi-state tax return compliance, premium tax compliance, income tax provisions on the statutory basis of accounting, consolidated income tax provisions on the GAAP basis of accounting, and representing taxpayers during the examination process with the Internal Revenue Service and state departments of revenue.

He has experience assisting clients with planning issues including: effective tax rate analysis, multi-state tax planning and analysis, distribution and dividend planning, and research for various other tax issues.