FINREP Florida , 2025

Art has been in the insurance industry since 1998 and has been consulting since 2001. His consulting career has focused on medical professional liability (MPL), homeowners, commercial property, workers’ compensation (WC), commercial and personal automobile, general liability, commercial multiple peril and title exposures.

Art provides actuarial consulting services to property and casualty (re)insurers, self-insured entities, risk retention groups and captive insurers. His core services include reserving, ratemaking, risk transfer testing, funding allocations, and developing experience rating plans.

Art serves as appointed actuary and/or loss reserve specialist for numerous (re)insurance carriers, captive insurance companies and self-insured entities. He advises numerous self-insured entities and (re)insurance companies on matters related to financial reporting of unpaid claim liabilities, routinely presenting to boards of directors and executive committees charged with financial reporting.

Art performs rate level reviews for a variety of coverages, including preparing and submitting filings and responding to insurance department inquiries. He establishes proper funding allocations among members of risk sharing groups, and conducts valuation analyses of merger and acquisition targets. Art also performs alternative risk financing feasibility studies and retention optimization studies, including financial performance modeling, as well as classification relativity studies to ensure price equity between classes and overall rate level adequacy.

In addition, he develops experience rating plans for MPL and WC (re)insurers, including post-implementation parameter testing. Art also assists (re)insurance companies with new product development and expansion into new territories, states and risk classes.

Charles Nyce is the Dr. William T. Hold Professor of Risk Management and Insurance and department chair of the RMI program at Florida State University (FSU). He has been at FSU since 2009 when he joined as the Associate Director of the Florida Catastrophic Storm Risk Management Center.

His main research areas are catastrophic risk pricing/financing and traffic safety/auto insurance.  He joined the Center in 2009 after serving as Senior Director of Knowledge Resources for the American Institute for CPCU.  He has authored numerous articles on a variety of risk management and insurance topics, including the relationship between insurance premiums and housing values, mitigation, demand for insurance, distracted driving, and catastrophic risk financing.  He has his PhD from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania and has taught risk management and insurance at LaSalle University, the University of Hartford, and the University of Georgia. 

John Rollins is a Board member of the Florida Policy Project and the CEO of Patriot Select Property and Casualty Insurance Company, a Florida homeowners insurer that began operations in 2025.  A fourth-generation Floridian and credentialed property-casualty actuary since 1995, he has spent the last 26 years of his 35-year career in coastal property insurance.  He served in C-suite roles in finance, risk and underwriting for various private-sector Florida property insurers before leading Patriot Select to the market.  He served as the Chief Risk Officer for Citizens after serving on its Board of Governors as an appointee of Gov. Rick Scott.  He has written several prize-winning actuarial research papers and many articles and op-eds about catastrophe-prone property and flood insurance.  He earned a B.A. in mathematics from Duke University and an M.A. in economics from the University of Florida.

Senator Jeff Brandes is a highly respected and accomplished leader who served in the Florida Legislature from 2010 to 2022. He represented District 24, which covered a majority of Pinellas County, and was known for his innovative and independent policy-making. Throughout his tenure, he consistently advocated for solutions to address Florida's most challenging issues.

Brandes is a strong advocate for free market principles and has worked to reduce regulations and taxes to promote business development in Florida. He is a vocal supporter of cutting-edge technologies and has played a vital role in the state's advancing self-driving vehicles, rideshare, and other emerging technologies. For over a decade, he has hosted the Florida Automated Vehicle Summit, which assembles industry leaders from around the country to address transportation technologies, operations, and policy issues.

He is a veteran, having served as an Army officer in the 101st Airborne Division in Iraq. This experience gave him a unique perspective on leadership and public service. He has also been an advocate for prison reform, worked to increase public safety through improvements in the criminal justice system.  The former Senator continues to be an expert leader in property insurance reform.

In addition to his legislative duties, Brandes is a business owner and serves on the boards of several community organizations. He is dedicated to making Florida a better place to live, work and raise a family. Since leaving office, he has founded the Florida Policy Project, (www.flpolicyproject.com) a not-for-profit, non-partisan, organization that researches best practices and better outcomes in housing affordability, property insurance, criminal justice and transportation.  The Florida Policy Project is working to impact state policy-making in these pillars. Senator Brandes lives in St. Petersburg and is the father of four children.

Wes Strickland serves as outside counsel to the Florida Property & Casualty Association. Mr. Strickland is the founder of Strickland Law, PLLC, where his practice focuses on insurance regulatory and corporate transactional matters.

With over twenty-five years of experience handling insurance regulatory law and complex corporate transactions, Mr. Strickland provides counsel to both domestic and international insurers and reinsurers, managing general agencies, insurance producers, insurance holding companies and their investors. Mr. Strickland routinely counsels clients regarding a wide array of insurance regulatory matters, including formation and startup of new insurance entities, multi-state licensing and compliance, insurance holding company act compliance, affiliated transactions, and market conduct and financial examinations.

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

Gabriel Carrillo is the Program Director for the Center for Risk Management & Insurance Education at the University of Central Florida. He is a property & casualty industry veteran whose 30-year career in personal, commercial and agricultural lines included roles in underwriting, actuarial, research, product development, product management, technology transformation and 15 years of executive-level leadership.

Gabriel earned his undergraduate degree in actuarial science from Purdue University and is currently a doctoral candidate (Risk Management & Insurance) at Florida State University. His research interests are broad, but his current focus is on his dissertation topic: Social Inflation.

Active in academia and the insurance industry, he has served on the boards of the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety and the Katie School of Insurance and Financial Services at Illinois State University and currently serves on the advisory board of the Purdue University Actuarial Science Program.

Dr. Truchelut is the co-founder and Chief Meteorologist of WeatherTiger, a Tallahassee agricultural meteorology, expert witness, and hurricane forecasting company. He graduated summa cum laude from Princeton University in 2008 with a bachelor's degree in Geosciences and earned his Ph. D. in Meteorology in 2015 from Florida State University. His research on tropical cyclone risk, seasonal forecasting, and predictive analytics has been published in numerous peer-reviewed journals. He is best known locally as the writer of WeatherTiger's Hurricane Watch, a bestselling, top 500 Substack newsletter, and for his appearances in the Tallahassee Democrat and USA Today-owned papers across Florida.

John Schaefer, CFA, is AAM’s Chief Executive Officer and Chairman of the Board as well as a Principal, with 37 years of investment experience.  John oversees all functions within the firm and manages a number of P&C and Life insurance company portfolios for AAM clients. John 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. John earned a BBA from the University of Notre Dame and an MBA from the University of Chicago.

Since joining Thomas Howell Ferguson in 2014, Nick has been providing tax compliance and consulting services for a large variety of Thomas Howell Ferguson’s diverse clients.
Having a broad foundation in various fields, Nick’s primary focus and professional development has been concentrated on Thomas Howell Ferguson’s large corporate clients, predominantly within the insurance industry. Specifically, Nick has experience in federal and multi-state tax return compliance, premium and excise tax return compliance, preparing income tax provisions on the statutory basis of accounting, preparing consolidated income tax provisions on the GAAP basis of accounting, and providing tax representation to both federal and state examiners.

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.

Chris has considerable experience in assignments involving loss reserving, rate filings, risk classification reviews, funding studies, loss cost projections, captive feasibility studies, risk transfer studies, captive application reviews and financial examinations. He has focused on analyses involving homeowners and dwelling fire exposures, as well as medical professional liability, lawyers professional liability, workers’ compensation, commercial property, commercial and personal automobile, and title exposures, among Others.

Prior to consulting, Chris worked for a leading primary insurance carrier, leading ratemaking studies and setting the loss and expense reserves for their personal automobile liability, motorcycle and umbrella lines of business.

Currently, Chris serves as project manager for self-insurers and traditional insurance companies, performing both interim and year-end reserve analyses. He also serves as project manager on loss reserve, ratemaking, risk transfer and funding studies for captive insurance companies, risk retention groups and self-insured entities. Chris also leads the firm’s research initiatives regarding title insurance, farm bureau insurance companies, property insurance markets (including Florida and Texas), and workers’ compensation frequency and severity trends by state.

Chris assists with preparation of Statements of Actuarial Opinion and Actuarial Opinion Summaries. He also provides consulting services to state insurance departments, including captive application reviews, loss reserve analyses and risk-focused financial examination support. In addition, Chris also brings experience in the trucking industry for alternative markets, including development of trucking insurance loss reserves, funding, retention and deductible Analyses.

Trevor is a senior reinsurance broker working out of the Gallagher Re Tampa office and focuses on marketing, producing, and servicing of property and casualty clients.  He uses his extensive financial background to help clients work through complex problems and business issues.

Prior to joining Gallagher Re, Trevor was the Chief Financial Officer of Cypress Group Holdings, Inc., a property and casualty insurance holding company.  He joined Cypress in 2020.  Prior to that, Trevor held similar roles at other insurance companies, including American Strategic Insurance, where he started in 2004.

Trevor graduated from the University of South Florida with a B.S. degree in Accounting and from the University of Florida with an M.B.A.  Trevor is a Certified Public Accountant in the State of Florida and a member of the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants and the Florida Institute of Certified Public Accountants.

Catherine is an accomplished Assurance Shareholder with a wealth of experience navigating challenges in the insurance industry. With a proven track record of delivering high-quality audit services, she excels in unraveling complex audits, ensuring adherence to industry standards and best practices, and fostering collaborative partnerships. Catherine's strategic approach combines a deep understanding of the regulatory framework with a passion for tackling interesting challenges and a commitment to client satisfaction. Catherine's experience includes conducting financial statement audits of various entities within the insurance industry on both a STAT and GAAP basis, evaluating and analyzing internal controls, compiling quarterly and annual statements for submission to the NAIC and state regulators, managing state compliance related to Medicaid and Medicare, and completing attestation projects for reinsurance transactions.