XL Appoints McNichols as Global Chief Actuary

XL Capital Ltd. announced that James McNichols, former Executive VP and COO of XL’s financial guarantee reinsurance subsidiary, XL Financial Assurance Ltd., has been appointed Global Chief Actuary.

He replaces Tom Weidman who has assumed the position of Executive Vice President & Actuary, Special Projects.

“McNichols will lead and oversee all major actuarial functions including the establishment of unpaid loss and loss expense reserves, pricing benchmarks and related financial provisions,” said the bulletin. “His replacement at XLFA has been selected and will be announced shortly.”

XL President and CEO Brian M. O’Hara commented: “We are grateful to Tom for his significant contributions, including his actuarial leadership of our recent Claims Audit Review. In his new role, we will continue to rely on his technical expertise. Having Jim and Tom in these key positions will ensure consistent and sound actuarial analyses, which are vital to XL’s continued disciplined underwriting and capital management.”

Commenting on his new role, McNichols said: “I intend to use my experience and knowledge to strike a balance between stability and responsiveness, capital management, and operations management. While I will look at unifying standards with emphasis on analysis efficiencies and alternative ways of analyzing XL’s risks and premiums, my overall focus and commitment will be to help XL maintain a strong balance sheet.”

McNichols joined the XL group in 1995 as Vice President and Chief Actuary of XL Re. In 1998 he became Senior Vice President, Actuary & Underwriter at XL Capital Products, where he was responsible for a wide array of Alternative Risk Transfer (“ART”) products. He was appointed Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer of XLFA in 2000.

Prior to joining XL he established the Bermuda practice of P&C actuarial consulting firm Milliman & Robertson. As Managing Director and Consulting Actuary his main focus was insurer liquidations, asbestosis and environmental impairment liabilities, and pricing for latent liability Loss Portfolio Transfers.

His actuarial career also included consultancy work with Ernst & Young in Bermuda between 1991 and 1994 and Tillinghast/Towers Perrin in Minnesota from 1988 to 1991. During the mid-eighties as a Corporate Actuary with The St. Paul Company in Minnesota, he published his first actuarial paper on reserve variability (Simplified Confidence Boundaries). He subsequently published another Casualty Actuarial Society paper on reserving for financial guaranty risk. He is a graduate of the University of Illinois at Champaign. He is also an Associate of the Casualty Actuarial Society and a member of the American Academy of Actuaries.