California GA Appoints New Executive Director

The California Life and Health Insurance Guarantee Association (CLHIGA) Board of Directors named Todd Thakar the Association’s new Executive Director to broaden their ability to protect California policyholders in national life, annuity, and health insurance insolvencies. Thakar comes with a wealth of experience within the guaranty system, having served on five state guaranty boards, including more than 20 years on the California, Oregon, and Alaska boards.

CLHIGA also announced that Thakar’s predecessor, Pete Leonard, will continue his work with CLHIGA and shift his focus to leverage his financial and accounting acumen. “I am excited to join the CLHIGA team and look forward to partnering with Pete to achieve best practice standards in fulfilling CLHIGA’s obligation to California policyholders,” Thakar said. “I look forward to building on CLHIGA’s rich history of policyholder protection including the payment of more than a billion dollars in policyholder claims since inception in 1991.”

Since November 2016, Thakar aided CLHIGA as a consultant on the Penn Treaty insolvency. Prior to joining CLHIGA, he served for more than 20 years as Vice President, Government Affairs for Prudential Financial, where he acted as the primary liaison and crisis manager for the Prudential enterprise to state and local regulators and legislators in nine Western states.

Charles Pace Passes Away

Charles Pace, former Vice Chair of the Mississippi Life & Health Insurance Guaranty Association, passed away on June 23, 2017. He was 70.

In addition to his work with the Mississippi association, Pace was Corporate Director of Governmental Affairs at Blue Cross Blue Shield of Mississippi, where he worked for 25 years. He was also the former Deputy Commissioner of Insurance for the state of Mississippi.