Five distinguished Iowa insurance professionals will be honored on May 19 as the newest members of the Iowa Insurance Hall of Fame. The 19th annual induction ceremony will be held at the Olmsted Center at Drake University. To be eligible for consideration, nominees must have an Iowa connection, serve as a role model for young people as well as others in the insurance business, exhibit the highest standards of ethical conduct, and have made a significant impact on the insurance industry. With the five newest inductees, 93 individuals will have been inducted into the Iowa Insurance Hall of Fame since its creation in 1997.

 

Reservations for the 2015 annual dinner must be made by May 13 by contacting Melissa Meiners at (515) 223-6060, ext. 15, or email her at Melissa@iiaiowa.org.

 

The five professionals who will be honored are:

 

Bruce Kelley

President and CEO, EMC Insurance Cos.

 

Bruce Kelley began his career with EMC Insurance Cos. in 1985 when he was named the company’s first in-house counsel as well as a vice president. Six years later, he was promoted to his present position of president and CEO of the company that was founded by his great-grandfather.

 

A graduate of Dartmouth College, Kelley earned a law degree at the University of Iowa with a focus on corporate insurance issues and practiced for several years with the Des Moines law firm of Bradshaw, Fowler, Proctor & Fairgrave before joining EMC.

 

Kelley has led EMC to high levels of performance, earning national honors such as Forbes’ 100 Most Trustworthy Companies list and ranking fourth for Developing Leadership Within by Chief Executive Officer magazine.

 

Several acquisitions brought EMC into new territories and expanded its scope. Kelley leads a company that is now among the top 50 U.S. insurers of its kind, based on net written premium of $1.57 billion. Since Kelley became CEO, Employers Mutual has grown from approximately $1 billion in assets to $3 billion in assets. Including its life insurance subsidiary, EMC National Life Co., the enterprise has $5 billion in assets and more than 2,200 employees in 25 states.

 

Kelley has served in various roles for numerous national insurance organizations, including the American Association of Insurance Services, the American Institute for Chartered Property Casualty Underwriters, the Property Casualty Insurance Association of America, NCCI Holdings Inc. and the Property and Liability Resource Bureau. He remains the ethics chair for the Iowa CPCU Society, 15 years after completing his four-year president/officer term. In the community, he has led fundraising efforts for Salisbury House, the Boy Scouts and the Des Moines Symphony. He also serves the Des Moines Rotary as its current president.

 

James Thomas Sharp (awarded posthumously)

Former president, Mill Owners Mutual Fire Insurance Co.

 

James Thomas Sharp, who led Mill Owners Mutual Fire Insurance Co. as president during the Great Depression, was hailed at the 50-year mark of his 56-year career with the company in the mid-1930s as “the dean of Iowa insurance executives.”

 

Sharp was born in Wilton, Iowa, in 1860, the son of James Gull Sharp, an energetic Scotsman who founded the mill insurer in 1875, not long after his flour mill burned to the ground. Sharp joined his father’s company as an office boy in 1884. He held many jobs with the company, including secretary-manager upon his father’s death in 1909, and as president from 1928 until 1940, just two years before he passed away. Both of his sons, Leonard Kepler and James Thomas Jr., served Mill Owners for many years as field men and officers.

 

The company relocated from Wilton to the Masonic Temple building in downtown Des Moines, later moving to a stately building at 2015 Grand Ave. In 1966, Kemper Insurance Co. of Illinois bought Mill Owners and moved its headquarters to Mason City.

 

During the years of Sharp’s leadership, the company grew substantially. In 1908 his father expressed pride in the fact that the company had $10 million worth of risks on its books and assets of $250,000. Over the next 25 years, James Thomas built Mill Owners to a point where insurance in force totaled $352 million and assets were $2.3 million.

 

On Feb. 2, 1934, a banquet celebrating Sharp’s 50 years of service was held at the Hotel Fort Des Moines, where he was praised as “a pioneer in the mutual insurance field.”

 

Jennie LeGates

Executive director, Mutual Insurance Association of Iowa

 

Throughout her career, Jennie LeGates has been recognized as an outstanding mentor to her peers and colleagues. LeGates retired from Grinnell Mutual Reinsurance Co. in 2013, where she had worked for 13 years as a senior performance improvement specialist, product compliance manager and manager of market intelligence.

 

She began her career in 1967 with Fireman’s Fund Insurance Co. as a systems instructor/analyst/programmer, and worked in the company’s San Francisco and Chicago offices in the fields of personal insurance management, training and development, and computer programming and system design. In 1985 she co-owned Moore and LeGates Insurance Agency Ltd. in Lake Forest, Ill. She developed a book of individual health insurance and was responsible for agency operational accounting and financial matters. During her 14 years in the agency, she also provided expertise in asset protection for affluent clients.

 

LeGates has a bachelor’s degree in history from Whitman College in Walla Walla, Wash., and a master’s degree in adult learning, performance and development from Drake University in 2007. She is a 33-year member of International Association of Insurance Professionals and past president of the Insurance Association of Greater Des Moines Inc. and the Insurance Women of Suburban Chicago. In the community, she chaired the Ames Planning and Zoning Commission from 2003 to 2005.

 

Richard “Dick” Friedman

Retired

 

Dick Friedman has always been passionate about education and has encouraged many young insurance industry professionals to seek professional designations.

 

Friedman received his Bachelor of Arts degree in business administration and economics from Loras College in Dubuque. He began his insurance career as an underwriting trainee with Home Insurance Company of New York in Chicago. He later accepted a position as multiple lines underwriter for Westfield Insurance Cos. in its Ohio home office and was later promoted to field underwriter in northern Illinois, specializing in commercial and industrial accounts. In 1966, he returned to Dubuque and joined Friedman Insurance to begin the third generation in the family insurance agency organized by Henry Friedman in 1928.

 

In May 1993, the Independent Insurance Agents of Iowa selected Friedman as the recipient of the group’s most prestigious award, the “H.H. Red Nelson Agent of the Year Award. He served the Independent Insurance Agents of Iowa for many years. While serving as president of the organization from August 1998 through August 1999, he guided the merger of the Professional Insurance Agents of Iowa and the Independent Insurance Agents of Iowa, resulting in one of the leading independent agent trade associations in the country, representing more than 8,000 insurance agents in Iowa.

 

Friedman has served as president of the Dubuque Jaycees and the Dubuque Area Chamber of Commerce, receiving many awards.

 

He established an educational incentive program at Friedman Insurance to encourage and reward professional development. Friedman currently serves on the board of trustees for Clark College in Dubuque, continuing to act as a role model and encouraging young people to seek higher education.

 

W. Harold Petersen

Founder and chairman, Petersen International Underwriters

 

W. Harold Petersen learned firsthand the devastation of being uninsured after his father suffered a disabling inury that led to the loss of his family’s farm, and throughout his career has been an industry leader in disability insurance.

The Council Bluffs native began his insurance career with Mutual of Omaha on his 20th birthday and by the time he was 22 was recognized in “Who’s Who in Insurance” for his work in developing policies that met the requirements of a new California minimum benefits law.

 

In 1956, Petersen went on to set up an Accident and Health Division for the American United Life Insurance Co. Upon completion of that project, he led a group of high-profile life and health underwriters and executives in the creation of a new insurance company, Underwriters National Assurance Co. (UNAC), dedicated to bringing to market high-limit disability coverages and the development of cash value and return of premium disability provisions. In 1967 he resigned as president of UNAC to form a marketing and management company that was the genesis of the firm known today as Petersen International Underwriters, where he remains active.

 

Petersen has served as managing director of the Disability Insurance Training Council, the Contents and Techniques committee of the Life Underwriter’s Training Council (LUTC) and instructor/moderator for LUTC, Chartered Life Underwriter (CLU) and Chartered Property and Casualty Underwriter (CPCU) programs. He helped found the Advanced Disability Underwriting seminars at Purdue University, Life Insurance Marketing Institute, Florida State University, and several other major universities. He co-founded the International DI Society, a professional association that is celebrating 10 years of promoting disability insurance.

 

He has been the recipient of the Harold R. Gordon Memorial Award – Person of the Year 1985, the Health Insurance Industry’s most coveted award. In 2002, he was honored with the Will G. Farrell Award presented by the Los Angeles Association of Insurance and Financial Advisors and in 2005 with the Lifetime Achievement Award from the International DI Society.