M&A consultants Peter Scourtis, Ryan Purdy, and Meg Glenn and will be attending the Louisiana Filing & Compliance Seminar in New Orleans on July 29 and 30.  The Seminar, held in conjunction with the Louisiana Insurers Conference, is hosted by the Louisiana Department of Insurance.  More information on the event is available at https://www.ldi.state.la.us/Property_Casualty/Rating/FilingComplianceSemi.htm.

M&A consultants Mark Brannon and Sue Buehler will be delivering a presentation on property and casualty catastrophe issues at the AICP Gulf States Chapter Education Day on Friday, July 30.

The AICP serves the insurance compliance community by promoting relationships, exchanging information, and providing learning opportunities within a dynamic regulatory environment.

More information on the event is available at http://www.aicp.net/events/eventDetails.cfm?eventID=378

M&A is proud to announce the results of our staff member’s recent actuarial examinations.

• Greg Fanoe, Rebecca Freitag, and Michael Solomon completed CAS Exam 8 and all three are now Fellows of the Casualty Actuarial Society.
• Ashley Pistole completed CAS Exam 7 and she is now a candidate to be an Associate of the Casualty Actuarial Society.
• Ryan Purdy completed CAS Exam 8 in pursuit of a Fellow designation with the CAS.
• Meg Glenn completed CAS Exam 7 and Leigh Gilbert completed CAS Exam 3L as they continue pursuing an Associate designation with the CAS.

 Congratulations to these employees on their hard work and success!

Merlinos & Associates welcomes our newest employee, Travis Lehmann.  Travis joins us as an actuarial analyst who has passed 2 exams in pursuit of a Fellowship Designation from the Casualty Actuarial Society.  He has 2 years of business experience, including:

• Stock Brokering for an online brokerage firm.
• Processing client requests, via phone and electronic message, with a high level of productivity and quality.
• Fostering the development of co-workers and students.

Mr. Lehmann graduated with honors from the Georgia State University with a Bachelor of Science in Mathematics.

Merlinos & Associates welcomes our newest employee, Jeremy Hoch. Jeremy has 13 years of casualty actuarial experience.  His experience includes the following:

• Personal Lines Pricing and Countrywide Studies
• Personal and Commercial Lines Loss and Loss Adjustment Expense Reserving
• Standard/Preferred Auto, Non-Standard Auto, and Homeowners books of Personal Lines business
• Workers Comp, Commercial Auto, GL, Commercial Property, and other Commercial Lines coverages
• Numerous Personal Lines Auto and Homeowners rate reviews and implementations
• Development of Product Management reports and tools
• Annual Statement of Opinion preparation
• Assistance with Schedule P preparation and statutory reporting
• All aspects of loss reserve database management, including the construction and validation of new databases
• Booking Insurer Financial Results in SAP
• Financial projections and capital adequacy monitoring for a Captive Insurer

Mr. Hoch is an Associate of the Casualty Actuarial Society and a Member of the American Academy of Actuaries.  He graduated with honors from the University of Pittsburgh with both a Bachelor of Arts and a Masters of Arts degree in Mathematics.

Merlinos & Associates has finished remodeling 4,000 square feet of new office space at our Norcross headquarters, and we welcome the staff of Insurance Industry Consultants (IIC) moving to our location on July 6th.  M&A and IIC merged their businesses in December of 2009 creating one of the five largest property and casualty actuarial consulting offices in the U.S. based on the number of credentialed actuaries. 

Our Norcross headquarters is now 12,000 square feet and houses our staff of 38, including 17 credentialed actuaries and 15 actuarial analysts.  Plus, M&A will add two additional employees later this month.  We also have credentialed actuaries in our San Antonio, TX office.

M&A has another 4,500 square feet of space still available to renovate to accommodate our vision for continued growth.

M&A’s Peter Scourtis will be attending the Florida Hurricane Catastrophe Fund’s (FHCF) Participating Insurers Workshop on June 3 & 4.  The Workshop will focus on the 2010 Reimbursement Contract and Data Call Changes, Status of the FHCF, 2010 Legislation in the State of Florida, as well as other topics.  M&A is a leader in providing actuarial consulting to the coastal insurance industry.  Details of our coastal property and casualty consulting experience can be found here.

Ashley has four years of property and casualty actuarial experience.  She is currently pursuing a Fellowship Designation from the Casualty Actuary Society.  Her experience includes:

• Aggregate ratemaking area
• Experience loss cost filings
• Analyses of development, trend, expense provisions, and law enactments
• Workers’ compensation and benefit cost analyses and summary reports
• Research projects investigating developments in the Workers’ Compensation arena
• Co-authored a research study quantifying the effect of utilization as a response to an increase in benefits.
• Data retrieval for measuring underwriting profitability and claims adjusting practices
• Assembling premium and loss
• Exhibits for reinsurance renewals and business proposals
• Preparing financial data submissions to regulatory bureaus
• Analyzing Worker’s Compensation and Commercial Automobile Liability claim frequency and severity, as well as historical loss ratios and development of losses to ultimate

Welcome to Ashley!

Merlinos & Associates is proud to announce that Rosemary Wickham has been named a principal in the firm.  Rosemary joined the firm in 1992 and has most recently been a consultant at M&A providing a wide-variety of expertise to our clients.

 ”We are very pleased to make Rosemary a principal of the firm.  As her clients and co-workers know, she is a pleasure to work with, energetic, and just a plain delightful person to be around,” said Matt Merlino. “Paul and I have been working with her for eighteen years now and I look forward to working with her until I retire.”

Rosemary is a Fellow in the Casualty Actuarial Society and a Member of the American Academy of Actuaries.  She is also a 1991 magna cum laude graduate from Appalachian State University where she received a Bachelor of Science degree in Applied Mathematics with a concentration in Actuarial Sciences.

Merlinos & Associates is currently expanding their office space to accommodate the additional staff members as a result of their recent merger with Insurance Industry Consultants (IIC), and to accommodate the future growth of their workforce.   The firm is in the process of remodeling over 4,000 square feet of recently-acquired office space adjoining their current facilities.  Once completed, the Norcross headquarters will total over 13,000 square feet.  This expansion is expected to be completed by summer.