- William Mudge, President, CEO
- Stephen C. Pogue, COO
- Ronald D. Field, Chief Medical and Disability Officer
- Kenneth R. Van Laar, Jr. FCAS, MAAA, Chief Underwriting Officer
-
Patrick J. Persse, CFO
- Lynn L. Ross, Underwriting Director - Southern Operations
- Sean Pepper, Underwriting Manager
- Northern Operations
- Kelly Bennett, Underwriting
Manager - Western Operations
William J. Mudge, President, CEO
Bill Mudge is a senior insurance executive with 20 years of leadership experience. As President and CEO of Golden Eagle for Liberty Mutual, Bill achieved one of the largest insurance company turnarounds in California history. In addition, Bill has over 15 years of underwriting management expertise, including as Chief Operating Officer and Chief Underwriting Officer at Industrial Indemnity. Most recently, Bill was with IBM's Business Consulting Services, where he served as the lead insurance consulting partner in the West to major carriers, brokers and regulatory agencies.
Bill currently serves on the board of the California Workers' Compensation Institute (CWCI). He has served as a Trustee of the Insurance Educational Association (IEA), a Board Member of the Insurance Industry Charitable Fund, Chairman of the IEA Board, Committee Member for the American Insurance Association, Committee Member for the California Workers' Compensation Insurance Rating Bureau, Director of the San Diego Chamber of Commerce, and Director of the San Diego YMCA.
Bill completed the Advanced Executive Education for Insurance Executives program at The Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania, holds an MBA from the University of Puget Sound and a BA from the University of Washington.
Stephen C. Pogue, Chief Operating Officer
Steve Pogue has over 20 years of senior-level experience in insurance operations and risk finance. As Senior Vice President at American Re-Insurance Company, Steve co-managed a $1.5 billion revenue US reinsurance business as well as developed integrated insurance and capital markets solutions for insurers and corporations. Steve has been a senior executive with insurance industry start-up companies, including as CFO and CEO.
Steve holds designations as a Chartered Property-Casualty Underwriter, Associate in Risk Management and Associate in Reinsurance.
Steve has served on the boards of Directors of many industry
association, and currently serves on the boards of numerous non-profit
organizations, as well as a specialty insurance carrier. Steve completed the Advanced Executive Education for Insurance Executives program at The Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania, holds an MBA from Santa Clara University and a BA from the University of California, Davis.
Ronald D. Field, Chief Medical and Disability Officer
Ron Field is a senior insurance executive with 30 years of leadership experience in claims administration, underwriting and agency management. As Executive Vice President of Golden Eagle for Liberty Mutual, Ron was responsible for all claims administration. During this time, Ron instituted a number of claims cost containment features focused on medical case management, litigation avoidance and fraud detection. Most recently, Ron was responsible for all of Golden Eagle's operations in Southern California. Ron has served as a Board member of the Association of California Insurance Companies, the California Insurance Guarantee Association, the California Workers Compensation Institute and as a Director of the San Diego Downtown Partnership.
Ron holds a BA from the University of California, Fullerton, and holds the Certified Compensation Specialist designation.
Kenneth R. Van Laar, Jr. FCAS, MAAA, Chief Underwriting Officer
Ken Van Laar has over 20 years of experience in the pricing and underwriting of workers' compensation insurance in the California market. As the first Regional Actuary at Liberty Mutual, Ken was responsible for developing pricing and risk selection methodologies, and the training of field personnel in those tools. As Vice President, Ken had responsibility for the Mid-Market Actuarial Department on a national basis. During this time, Ken developed various tools used to improve risk selection and pricing to achieve reductions in loss and combined ratios and grow premium volume. Ken is a Fellow of the Casualty Actuarial Society and a Member of the American Academy of Actuaries.
Ken is a former Member of the CAS Exam Committee, the California Workers' Compensation Insurance Rating Bureau Actuarial Committee and the California Workers' Compensation Institute Research Committee. Ken holds a BA from the University of California, Berkeley.
Patrick J. Persse, CFO
Pat Persse has more than 20 years of insurance and reinsurance accounting and finance experience. Pat joined CompWest from the California State Automobile Association (CSAA) where he was Vice President, Controller and Senior Financial Officer for all CSAA companies, including the Inter-Insurance Bureau. Prior to joining CSAA, Pat was Controller, personal insurance division, for the California Casualty Group for five years and also held the position of assistant controller at GTE Reinsurance Company in Bermuda for six years.
Pat is a Certified Public Accountant (CPA) and obtained his CPA at Coopers &
Lybrand in Atlanta, Georgia. He holds a BBA accounting degree from Georgia
State University. Pat is a current member of the Georgia and California
Society of CPA's and the American Institute of CPA's. He served as a
member of the Board of Directors for the Food Bank of Contra Costa and Solano.
Lynn L. Ross, Southern Operations Underwriting Director
Lynn Ross has 20 years of insurance experience in both the insurance carrier and insurance broker sectors. Lynn specialized in property and casualty business development through the direction and coordination of sales, underwriting, marketing, actuarial, loss control and claim disciplines. Lynn joined CompWest Insurance Company in October of 2006 as the Director of Underwriting for Southern California. Prior to coming to CompWest Insurance Company Lynn was Vice President of Sales and Operations at Western Growers Insurance Services. Prior to joining WGA Lynn was Vice President at Golden Eagle Insurance Company where she created the Managed Program Division.
Over the past twenty years Lynn worked at Continental Insurance Company and various insurance agencies in Milwaukee, Chicago, New York and Florida.
Lynn is active with the IBA and was awarded the Insurance Company Professional of the year by IBA in 2004.
Sean Pepper, Northern Operations Underwriting Manager
Sean Pepper has
10 years of insurance experience in both the carrier and broker
sectors. Sean was part of the CompWest founding team and wrote
the company’s first policy. Before CompWest he was a Senior
Underwriter for Liberty Mutual’s property & casualty middle
market, and spent a year working as an Account Manager at Tanner
Insurance Brokers. He has been essential to the growth of
CompWest, and a key member of the production underwriting team.
Sean has grown with the company and is taking on his next role
of Underwriting Manager for our Northern California team.
Sean has his BA
from California State University at Chico.
Kelly Bennett, Western Operations
Underwriting Manager
Kelly Bennett’s
experience in the workers’ compensation industry spans more than 20
years on both the broker and carrier sides. She began her career in
1986 as a premium auditor for Eagle Insurance, advancing to
underwriter before her promotion to senior underwriter. Most
recently, she worked at AIG as a senior underwriter in both the
Seattle and San Francisco offices, where she underwrote large,
high-hazard accounts with multi-jurisdictional operations. Kelly
has been with CompWest since July 2007.
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Heather Allan, SPHR, Human Resources Director
Heather has over 20 years of experience in human resources. Prior to joining CompWest, Heather led a consulting practice establishing human resource departments for start-up enterprises. Heather has worked as a key member of the management team of multi-million dollar firms and Fortune 500 companies in a wide variety of industries including insurance, financial services, technology and health care sectors.
Heather holds a degree from San Francisco State University. She is a member of the Society of Human Resource Management (SHRM), the Northern California Human Resources Association (NCHRA). She is a certified Senior Professional in Human Resources (SPHR) and a member of the NCHRA – Legislative Affairs Committee.
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Jody Black, Director, Premium Services
Jody Black has over 19 years in the property-casualty insurance industry primarily in the area of premium auditing. He began his career in 1984 at Liberty Mutual Insurance Group as a premium auditor. Most recently, he served as Western Region Premium Audit Manager where he assumed responsibility for audit activity in 11 states and portions of Canada. Jody has used his significant technical experience when conducting large, complex audits and resolving high-profile disputes. In addition to his duties in premium auditing, Jody is experienced in loss audits, working closely with injured parties and claims departments to calculate financial losses such as business interruption and inventory loss.
Jody holds a BBA from University of North Texas, and an MBA from St. Mary’s College of CA.
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Michael Knibbs, Director of Information Technology
Michael Knibbs is an IT professional with more than 20 years of IT experience in the Insurance and Financial Services industry. Michael worked in the UK as a consultant to American Express, before moving to the USA where he began his Insurance career with Fireman’s Fund Insurance in 1986. At Fireman’s Fund (and later Allianz) he held a number of technical management positions including Operations, Development, and Systems Architecture. Michael implemented new systems for the Personal Lines Division and for a new subsidiary writing direct automobile insurance.
In 2001, Michael joined CSAA as the Director of Systems Architecture and Planning, where he was responsible for technical strategy, core systems selection and migration planning. Later, he became technical director for the implementation and operational support of the new Membership and Insurance Systems.
Michael has a B.Sc. in Biology from Portsmouth (UK) and a diploma in Computer Studies (CDI) from Southampton (UK).
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Silvia Kwok, Senior Operations Manager
Silvia Kwok has over 15 years of cross-functional experience in the insurance industry, including claims, underwriting, operations and technology. She has cultivated her underwriting technical skills at Liberty Mutual and most recently in Home Office Underwriting at Republic Indemnity. She has also served as COO of an ecommerce insurance aggregator specializing in the distribution of personal and commercial lines insurance, where she was integral in increasing the process efficiency in new business acquisition as well as fortifying the underwriting expertise.
Silvia holds a BA in Economics from the University of California, Berkeley and is attending the EMBA program at the Anderson School of Business at the University of California, Los Angeles.
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Thomas D Logan, ARM, CSP, Loss Control Manager
Tom Logan has over 25 years of experience in loss control and management with workers’ compensation specialty carriers. He started with California Casualty Management Company and honed his skills with other California Workers’ Comp specialty carriers such as Citation Insurance Company, Transamerica Insurance Group, and HIH Insurance. He was the Director of Loss Control for Sierra Insurance Group from 2000 to 2004. He has developed a proactive approach to risk and advocates the integration of accident prevention and claims management activities to reduce the cost of loss.
Tom holds the ARM designation and is a Certified Safety Professional. He has instructed for the IEA and the Greater Los Angeles Chapter of the National Safety Council. He earned a B.S in Environmental Health from Cal State University Northridge. He is a past president of the Valley Costal Chapter of the ASSE and was the 2003-04 Safety Professional of the Year for Region II of the America Society of Safety Engineers.
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Linda Ramirez, Claims Manager
Linda has 20 years of experience in workers’ compensation insurance, with prior experience in office management and accounting. She began her insurance career as an adjuster for Comco Management, and later worked as a supervisor at Great States Insurance Company where she was involved in training new adjusters. Before coming to CompWest, she worked at Golden Eagle Insurance as a branch office claims manager, and then at Liberty Mutual as a Team Manager, again involved in training new adjusters.
Linda has her BA from California State University at Fullerton.
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Jett Ricafort, Claims Manager
Jett
Ricafort has over 20 years experience in workers’ compensation
claims, having worked for various insurance companies and third
party administrators. She has been involved in starting new units
or teams to handle special or dedicated accounts; creating work flow
procedures and providing training for Adjusters. Prior to CompWest,
Jett was a Claims Supervisor for the Worker’s Compensation Division
of the City & County of San Francisco, whose unit was assigned to
handle the San Francisco Unified School District and the Sheriff’s
Office among other departments.
Jett obtained her BA from the University of the Philippines and has
the Workers Compensation Claims Professional (WCCP) and Certified
Professional in Disability Management (CPDM) designations.
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Rick Shaw, AIM, Director of Corporate Underwriting
Rick Shaw has 30 years of experience in underwriting and underwriting management. He began his insurance career with Fireman's Fund where he focused on the casualty lines, including workers compensation. He then joined Allianz Insurance Company (AIC), and spent 21 years with Allianz in positions of increasing responsibilities, ultimately becoming Director of Underwriting in their home office. In this position, he was responsible for underwriting activities, training, underwriting audits and profit & loss of their four branch offices. Rick joined Golden Eagle Insurance Company in 1998 as an Assistant Vice President of WC underwriting, having similar responsibilities as with AIC.
Rick has been an instructor for the Insurance Educational Association for the past eighteen years, and was recently presented with the Insurance Institute of America's (IIA) Outstanding Course Leader Award. He has the Associate in Management designation, and has a BA degree from California State University at Northridge.
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Bill Van Kuran, Senior Claims Consultant
Bill has 30 years of experience in property/casualty claims management. He began as a Field Claims Adjuster for Liberty Mutual, eventually managing branch office claims operations for Liberty in both Northern and Southern California. He also has experience as the Home Office Claims Manager for a regional specialty carrier. Before joining CompWest Bill was a Technical Claims Specialist for Golden Eagle, where he held management responsibility for the Orange branch office.
Bill has a BA from Pomona College, Claremont.
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Christopher
Folkman, Business Development Manager
Chris Folkman
is the Business Development Manager for CompWest Insurance Company, where he
is responsible for branding, marketing, and distribution strategy. He
has experience on both the broker and carrier sides of insurance, and is an
expert in third party commercial coverage and claims. Before CompWest,
he was a consultant at Marsh Inc.'s risk consulting practice where he
advised Fortune 500 Companies on the negotiation of insurance settlements
for complex, multi-year environmental liability claims.
Chris holds a
degree from Stanford University, and has the Associate in Risk Management
(ARM) and Associate in Insurance Services (AIS) designations.
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Patricia Suetopka, Accounts
Receivable Manager
Patricia has 14 years of experience in
accounting and finance. Her experience includes 7 years managing
accounts receivable years and 5 as a Fiscal Officer for a non- profit
corporation where she was in charge of accounting, systems operations
and federal and state regulations compliance. She also served as Interim
Executive Director while continuing to perform her normal duties as
Fiscal Officer. Before joining CompWest, Patricia led a large accounts
payable team in the Finance Ops department at Washington Mutual Bank in
Seattle.
Patricia is a member of the American
Institute of Professional Bookkeepers and she is also a commissioned
Notary Public for the State of California.
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