Insurance Federation of New York Presents Free Enterprise Award to Steve Menzies
Mary Lanning Public Service Award to William H. Frazier
Hundreds applaud honorees and hear new head of DFS Hon. Adrienne A. Harris
Nearly 300 insurance leaders convened at New York’s Union League Club on March 31st for the 107-year-old Insurance Federation of New York’s Annual Free Enterprise Award luncheon, considered by many to be the industry’s top award. This year’s honoree was Steve Menzies, Chairman of Applied Underwriters, who joins a long line of top US business leaders in receiving the accord. The very first annual Mary Lanning Public Service Award was given to to William Frazier, founder of American Veterans Group, Wall Street’s first public benefit corporation. Honored guest, New York’s new Superintendent of Insurance, Hon. Adrienne A. Harris, was interviewed during the program in a “fireside chat” format whereupon she viewed the DFS’s strengths and her own progress as a professional, among other topics.
Mr Steve Menzies joins a most illustrious group of entrepreneurs in receiving the IFNY Free Enterprise Award, including Henry Ford II, Hank Greenberg, Red Motley, Greg Case, Brian Dupperault, Pat Ryan, Bill Flynn, Tom Moran, J. Carter Bacot, Hyatt Brown, Sandy Weill, Donald Trump, and many other iconic business leaders. Mr Menzies is himself a serial entrepreneur who acquired Applied Underwriters in 2019, 15 years after he founded the Company, from Berkshire Hathaway. He has since grown the Company dramatically through several acquisitions in the US and abroad and through refined organic growth.
He is currently constructing the largest urban development in the US, Heartwood Preserve, in Omaha, Nebraska, where the Company’s operational headquarters is located. Founder of the Steve Menzies Global Foundation, Mr. Menzies has received numerous awards for his philanthropic work, notably for leading hostage rescue missions in Venezuela, for securing the return of Americans left in Afghanistan and for leading, by Papal appointment, the St. Francis Day Foundation to treat the concerns for human ecology as articulated in the Encyclical Laudato si. A trustee of colleges and other educational and cultural institutions, Mr. Menzies is Vice Chairman of the San Francisco Opera, one of America’s most important cultural institutions.
In making the award presentation, IFNY’s new President Howard Mills, cited Menzies work: “The centerpiece of our Annual Luncheon each year since 1913 is the presentation of our Free Enterprise Award. Today, I am delighted to be able to present this prestigious award to a man who has truly gone above and beyond in so many ways and has had an impact that is as amazing as it is surprising in the service of our fellow citizens, our society, and our business.
His story is a narrative of hard work, vision, accomplishment, and unselfish volunteering and giving. His business career started when he founded a multi-faceted data processing and insurance underwriting company in Silicon Valley and built it piece by piece until it required a separate operations office in Omaha, Nebraska to process all the business. It did not take long for Warren Buffet to take notice of the tiger in the neighborhood and decide to invest in the company, name our awardee a direct report – the youngest CEO at Berkshire ever – and add the entity to the Berkshire portfolio. In 2019 after growing his company dramatically and actually creating channel competition within Berkshire, our awardee took the bold step – a rarity – of buying his company back from Berkshire.
That was in October of 2019. Since then, he has created an important force in insurance, in real estate, and in other sectors. He has undertaken and just topped off one of the largest urban mixed-use developments in the United States, Heartwood Preserve in Omaha on the site of what was Boys Town. Heartwood is an exemplar of responsible environmental creativity, with miles of well-defined space for residents and occupants in the homes, corporate buildings, and retail facilities on the 500-acre site.
Since 2019 he has made a series of acquisitions, about 20, and has brought together many top professionals from across the insurance spectrum. Applied has become a partnership of star performers, expert doers and thinkers from across the industry and around the world, led by its founders who drive the entrepreneurial juggernaut.
All of that would be enough for most corporate execs, fulfilling an award-winning role in Workers Compensation for care and clients’ safety, growing a staff of 1,000, and steering an A rated, international group of insurance companies. But beyond that, he has used his resources, his time, his talent, and his drive boldly and daringly. Our awardee has personally planned and supervised the execution of rescue missions, arranging and flying tactical teams to rescue more than 1,775 Americans stranded in Afghanistan. He met face to face with Venezuela’s hostile dictator, Nicolas Maduro, in Caracas to negotiate for the release and better care and living conditions for US hostages held there. And, this past year, he met for several hours face to face with Pope Francis in his residence, whereupon, the Pope personally engaged him to lead a worldwide effort to give concrete form to the words of exhortation in his landmark Papal Encyclical, expressing deep and passionate concern for “human ecology” and the social world we share.
Our honoree is a native of NY, a Columbia graduate in engineering, a born builder, an accomplished executive and entrepreneur, and a mover and shaker for our good and that of our fellow occupants on this planet.
Mr William H. Frazier received IFNY’s Mary Lanning Public Service Award. Mr Frazier is founder of American Veterans’ Group, Wall Street’s first public benefit corporation, an enterprise that trains and employs veterans to ensure that they enter the financial world at a level that uses their potential fully rather than the roles that many were accorded because their skills were modest. The Company has been a success and has built a framework for veterans. Mr Frazier has served as Trustee and Treasurer of Northwell Healthcare Systems, a national leader in the provision of health services to millions of Americans.
In accepting the award, Mr Frazier noted: “ I am delighted to receive this award on behalf of our team at American Veterans Group, Wall Street’s first and only Public Benefit corporation.
Our enterprise is unique in the sphere of public service. We train veterans for serious jobs, acknowledging the serious dedication and sacrifice they have made for us. Rather than being satisfied with mere employment, like one marine hero whom I met whose post Iraq war job was shuttling around a building to bring jobs to the mail room earning roughly 24,000 per month after fighting a war – and like it or not, it was a war and US soldiers battled there selflessly. Now that marine and others like him have learned financial services, financial markets and have a shot at 100K plus in a short time, especially if they use the discipline that they learned in the service. That is our service to them….And to you. Companies that adopt us, partner with us, add us to their rostrum and public companies that include us in their syndications , all of you really put brave men and women on the road to financial success and to well being beyond the minimal offerings they get from the government. It is a most beautiful undertaking and I am grateful for all those who have stepped up.
May I point out our CEO – he is hard to miss at 6’6” – Ben Biles, former Navy officer who now steers our ship and would most willingly meet with corporate leaders to engage your affiliation. And I mean that. We are not out asking for money or for contributions; we just want partners with the tenacity and resources to get these willing veterans where they will make a difference. Let me say, as well, that in a business like insurance where good faith and fidelity are watchwords, our recruits have lived and sacrificed under those words and words just like them as a matter of habit.
Let me turn, lastly, to Mark Lanning, in whose name this award is given for the first time today. When Steve Acunto described her work to me, from the Thanksgiving dinners feeding all comers under the EL at 125th street to her recruitment and shepherding of young inner city youth to place them in corporations , I can only say that I am doubly honored.”
In a departure from the usual format, New York’s newly confirmed Superintendent of the Department of Financial Services, Hon. Adrienne A. Harris, held a fireside chat interview with Prof. Mark Browne, Robert Clements Distinguished Chair in Risk Management and Insurance School of Risk Management, Tobin College of Business, St. John’s University. Ms Harris, who heads what is arguably the most important State insurance regulatory agency in the nation, answered questions about the composition of the DFS, its needs, her career and the matter of diversity and inclusion in the business.
IFNY directors and officers were introduced during the event. led by Hon. Howard Mills, elected President.
IFNY Directors elected to office: Chairman, Nick Pearson, Independent Consultant, Insurance and Reinsurance; Immediate Past Chairman, Lance J. Albright, Vice President, Claims Relationship Management, QBE North America; President Howard Mills, Sr. Advisor, McKinsey and Co.; Treasurer, Richard White, CEO, ShelterPoint Life Insurance Company; Secretary, Huhnsik Chung, Shareholder, Carlton Fields; Vice President, Amy Feller, Regional Chief Operating Officer and NYC Branch Manager, CHUBB; Vice President, Jeffrey A. Silver, Esq. Executive Vice President, General Counsel, Applied Underwriters; Vice President, K.J. Singh, President and COO, Maya Assurance Company; Vice President, Michael Fusco, Consultant, FCAS, MAAA, CERA; Vice President/Managing Director, Steve Acunto, President, CINN Worldwide, Inc.
Directors elected including the officers above are:
Kermitt Brooks, General Counsel, The Guardian Life Insurance Company of America; Denise Campbell, SVP, Client Executive, MARSH; Michael Catina, Assistant Vice President & Assistant General Counsel, Zurich North America; Maura T. Clancy, President, Clancy & Clancy Brokerage, Ltd.; James P. Corcoran, Esq. James P. Corcoran Insurance and Related Legal Services; Regina Degnan, Executive Vice President, The Newman Team, AON; Eric R. Dinallo, Partner, Debevoise & Plimpton; Frederic M. Garsson, Partner, Saul Ewing Arnstein & Lehr LLP; Douglas J. Hayden, President, Wright Public Entity, The Wright Insurance Group; Daniel F. Maher, Executive Director and Chief Operating Officer of the Excess Line Association of New York (ELANY); Roger M. Moak, Esq., Arbitrator; Manfred Ohrenstein, Counsel, Ruskin Moscou Faltischek, P.C.; Kevin Rampe, General Counsel, CHUBB; Raul Rivera, Retired Chairman, President and CEO, National Benefit Life Insurance Company; William M. Savino, Partner, Rivkin Radler LLP; Francine L. Semaya, Legal Consultant in insurance regulation, reinsurance, and insurance insolvency; Wendy R. Shapss, Senior Managing Director, FTI Consulting, Inc.; Maria T. Vullo, CEO, Vullo Advisory Services, PLLC; Hank Watkins, President, Lloyd’s America, Inc. James J. Wrynn, Esq., Senior Managing Director, FTI Consulting.
The Insurance Federation of New York, Inc., since 1913, has been a force for communicating ideas among all sectors of the insurance industry, bringing public and private interests together for the benefit of all. The Insurance Federation of New York’s prestigious Free Enterprise Award—presented to some of history’s legendary entrepreneurs—continues to salute risk takers and leaders whose creativity and initiative has enabled the expansion of business throughout New York, across the country and around the world. In the insurance industry, it is the commitment and vision of these leaders that has created and refined the risk transfer mechanism to spur economic growth and contribute to personal and business financial security for countless millions.
Today, the Insurance Federation of New York’s annual calendar of events brings together the “best and brightest” to ensure that industry intelligence is shared and that support for best practices in insurance business, law and regulation earns the understanding of leaders across the spectrum. This shared goal draws business executives, legislators and regulators to our Annual Luncheon, our “Breakfast with…” programs, professional seminars, and other events. We also note the establishment of the IFNY Intern Summer Program. Federation members have given most generously of their time and finances to support this program that reaches out into the community and gives highly motivated teens, from challenging backgrounds, an in-depth opportunity to learn about the insurance industry in all its facets and to consider a career in insurance.
The Insurance Federation of New York, Inc., does not engage in lobbying activities and is open to professionals in every segment of the field.
