Contibutors and Features

Contributions from the best in the industry for new ideas and insights

The Claims SPOT is please to have contributors from industry insiders, experts in claims, attorneys and business specialist to help provide new and interesting insights to our readers.

Jim Pattillo

Jim is a partner in the Alabama firm of Norman Wood Kendrick & Turner.  An experienced litigator, Mr. Pattillo represents clients in the areas of general and professional liability, insurance coverage and litigation, commercial litigation, and complex and mass tort litigation.  He has represented numerous insurers and their insureds in all phases of his practice.  Jim has tried over 40 cases  to verdict in his career, but also knows the value of posturing a case for settlement and the need to effectively manage defense costs to minimize indemnity payments.  He is the incoming chair of the Defense Research Institute’s Young Lawyers Committee (though he hardly qualifies as a young lawyer).  In addition to a law degree, he also holds a Master of Arts in Mass Communication.  Most importantly, Jim knows the value of returning phone calls timely, giving accurate estimates and recommendations, and being accessible to his clients at all times.

Suzanne Ganier

Suzanne has deep experience in managing litigation, both in private practice and for some of the industry’s most progressive insurance carriers. Most recently, Suzanne was the Director of Litigation for Louisiana Citizens Property Insurance Corporation, where she implemented a ground-up litigation management program. Suzanne has served in Staff Attorney and Staff Counsel positions with CNA, Progressive Insurance, and Zurich North America, and was in private practice with Renaud, Cook, Drury & Mesaros and with Querrey & Harrow. Suzanne speaks frequently on litigation management topics with both the Council on Litigation Management and RIMS. Suzanne earned her J.D. from Sandra Day O’Connor College of Law at Arizona State University and is licensed to practice in both Illinois and Arizona.

Melissa K. Loew

Melissa has over 20 years of experience at top tier organizations including the Allstate Corporation, Ernst & Young Management Consulting, the University of Chicago Hospitals, and the American Bar Association.  Most recently, Melissa was Product Director at Allstate, managing a $2.5B P&L for all property-casualty lines in four states.  She was responsible for new product implementation, product enhancements, pricing, underwriting and catastrophic exposure management.  Prior to moving to the product organization, she led strategy for Allstate’s 17,000 employee claim organization.  In this role, Melissa developed the strategy for a major field reorganization , served as a release lead for the implementation of Claim Components, and directed claim customer experience initiatives.  Melissa was also a Director of Corporate Strategy, where she led program management for the launch of the call center and web sales channels.  She has an MBA from the Kellogg School of Management and a BA from Northwestern University.

Bob Glasser

Bob Glasser is a managing director at BDO Consulting, a division of BDO Seidman, LLP, in the New York office.  Mr. Glasser is a certified public accountant, a certified fraud examiner and a certified insolvency and reorganization accountant, with more than thirty years of diverse financial management and accounting experience at public and private companies.

Mr. Glasser, who is also known as “B.I. Bob,” leads the firm’s New York Insurance Claim Services practice, assisting insured businesses—including hotels, manufacturers, distributors and service organizations throughout the world—to prepare and substantiate business interruption and property damage claims resulting from physical damage due to hurricanes, floods and other perils.  Mr. Glasser has also been involved in forensic investigations of employee theft in the hospitality and retail industries.

The professionals of BDO Consulting’s Insurance Claim Services practice have extensive experience working with organizations to determine an accurate assessment of their risk and to define an appropriate amount of coverage to match the organizations’ risk model.  Our professionals draw upon their experience working in numerous industries, offering unique insight for our clients’ valuation needs, and they hold a variety of certifications, including CPA, CFE, MAI, ASA and MRICS.

For more information about BDO Consulting’s insurance valuation services, please contact:

To Contact Bob, at BDO, call (212) 885-8173 or email him at rglasser@bdo.com

Christian Stegmaier JD

Christian Stegmaier is a shareholder with Collins & Lacy, PC, a defense-based litigation firm with offices in Columbia, Greenville, and Myrtle Beach, South Carolina.  Christian leads the firm’s Retail/Hospitality/Entertainment Liability practice team.  The claims his team defends include: premises liability; third party tort; alcohol liability; food adulteration; and loss prevention/non-productive stop.  He is also an experienced appellate advocate, having handled multiple appeals in both the state and federal appellate venues.  In addition to practice, Christian is adjunct professor of hotel and restaurant law at the University of South Carolina’s College of Hospitality, Retail, and Sport Management.  Prior to private practice, he clerked for The Honorable Ralph King Anderson, Jr., Judge of the South Carolina Court of Appeals. He holds three degrees from the University of South Carolina (B.A., Political Science, M.P.H., Public Health Administration, and Juris Doctor).

He can be reached by telephone at (803) 255-0454 or via email at cstegmaier@collinsandlacy.com.  You can also follow him on Twitter at @cstegmaier.

Philip Lanzkowsky, MD, ScD, FRCP, DCH

Dr. Lanzkowsky is a world expert in the fields of Pediatrics and Pediatric Hematology Oncology.  He has reviewed hundreds of cases and provided his opinion and testimony on cases for both the plaintiff and defense in cases alleging medical malpractice. Dr. Lanzkowsky received his medical degree from the University of Cape Town, South Africa in 1959. He completed numerous fellowships and post graduate work at the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh, Scotland, St. Mary’s Hospital in London, England, Duke University, North Carolina, and the University of Utah in Salt Lake City.  Dr. Lanzkowsky began his medical career in the United States at New York Hospital – Cornell Medical Center where he was first Director of Pediatric Hematology and later Acting Pediatrician-in-Chief.

In 1970 he assumed the position of Chairman of Pediatrics at the Long Island Jewish Medical Center where he was instrumental in the development, planning and establishment of the Schneider Children’s Hospital [recently renamed Cohen Children’s Medical Center of New York] and was instrumental in its implementation.  In 1984, at its opening, he became Chief-of-Staff of the Children’s Hospital.

A Professor of Pediatrics for the Albert Einstein College of Medicine and a frequent lecturer worldwide, Dr. Lanzkowsky is the author of seven texts in Pediatric Hematology-Oncology, author of chapters in many standard textbooks, and has published 270 scientific papers and numerous chapters in standard textbooks.

Claire Louis

Claire joins The Claims SPOT team with over 25 years of claims experience. A hands-on property-casualty insurance claims executive skilled in  managing complex technical, financial, and operational claim issues,  Claire has worked extensively with clients to more efficiently and cost-effectively manage their insurance claim exposures. Throughout her career, she has advised  insurers, corporations, brokers, MGAs, TPAs, state insurance regulators, and their advisors on claim practices, insurance claim program design, vendor management, loss reserve issues, and the management of complex and high-severity claims and claims arising from discontinued business.

Claire began her career at Continental Insurance Company where she held executive-level claim positions within the national Environmental Claims Department and Home Office Claims. After her tenure as global insurance claims manager for multi-national petrochemical manufacturer, Elf Atochem,

Claire spent a significant portion of her career as Director in the Insurance Claims Practice Group of PricewaterhouseCoopers, LLP. There she counseled  insurance, insurance-related, and corporate entities in a broad range of matters involving claim issues, including loss reserve studies of long-tail liabilities such as asbestos and pollution, transaction due diligence, reinsurance commutations, insurance coverage disputes, claim service vendor management, insurer insolvency, regulatory compliance, and claims process improvement initiatives.

Claire was retained by Turner Construction Company to build a start-up claims operation for its insurance brokerage affiliate.  This involved the creation of claim policies, procedures, and customer service standards.

Read Claire’s latest posts

Dr. Gary Blake

Dr. Gary Blake, will be providing articles on improving writing for the claims industry in our new section “The Claims Writing Workshop”

Dr. Blake is the director of  The Communication Workshop, and has presented writing seminars at more than 200 insurance companies throughout the United States, UK, Canada, and Bermuda including AETNA, AIG, Allstate,  CNA, Crum & Forster, Liberty Mutual, Munich Re, SAFECO, and State Farm Insurance, to name a few. Dr. Blake has authored 11 books, including,  The Elements of Business Writing (Macmillan, 1992), now in its 25th printing having sold more than 150,000 copies.

Dr. Blake has presented hundreds of on-site Claims Writing seminars and has written for most of the field’s leading trade magazines, including Best’s, Claims, Insurance Advocate, Property/Casualty Insurance, SIU Awareness, and National Underwriter. He has presented programs at many leading claims conferences, including PLRB, AAIS, International Claims Association, IASIU, Southern Claims Association, Midwest Claims Association, and Eastern Claims Association. Also, he has developed and presented writing seminars exclusively for SIU professionals as well as for professionals in Underwriting, Compliance, Marketing, IT, and Product Development.

To contact Dr. Blake or learn more about his seminars, please call, (516) 767-9590, e-mail: garyblake@aol.com; or visit his website: www.writingworkshop.com <http://www.writingworkshop.com/>