Leading global professional services firm Alvarez & Marsal is expanding its dedicated Insurance Advisory Services practice to keep pace with growing market demand for specialized knowledge and hands-on insurance and enterprise risk management expertise.

Drawing on the full breadth of financial, operational and business advisory resources across A&M’s global firm, this growing senior team assists clients in areas such as process improvement, risk management advisory, captive risk management, regulatory support, data and analytic-driven solutions, and pension and benefits restructuring. The practice serves clients across the U.S. with professionals based in New York, Chicago and Houston.

Joining the team, led by managing director Jim McDermott, is long-time insurance industry executive and managing director Thomas Mulhare in New York. The firm also announced new joiners: senior directors John Capasso and Rudy Dimmling in New York, and Patrick Hughes in Chicago.

“A&M brings 30 years of experience in anticipating and mitigating the consequences of risk on business operations and performance,” said Jim McDermott, managing director and head of A&M Insurance Advisory Services. “Clients have been increasingly looking to us for guidance. Expanding our dedicated Insurance Advisory practice is a natural next step in A&M’s evolution. Our operational heritage positions us to provide unmatched advisory and interim management services across the insurance industry spectrum and company lifecycle.”

Over the last 25 years, Mulhare has worked exclusively in the insurance industry with more than 150 insurance entities. Prior to joining A&M, he worked at EisnerAmper, a New York area CPA firm, where he started the insurance practice and built it into the fifth-largest insurance accounting and consulting practice in Metro New York. Before that, he was a senior partner at Arthur Andersen, where he led the Northeast Insurance Practice and Worldwide Actuarial Practice. He is a member of Life Insurance Council of New York (LICONY), International Association of Insurance Receivers (IAIR), the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA) and New Jersey Society of CPAs (NJSCPA).

Capasso brings significant experience in alternative risk solutions to A&M, and will lead the Captive Risk Management division within the Insurance Advisory Services practice. Over the course of his career, he has provided extensive advice and guidance on complex business issues to public and privately held businesses and professionals both domestically and internationally in a wide range of industries, including public accounting, investment banking, risk management, healthcare and financial services. Before joining A&M, he was managing director of Captive Planning Associates, Ltd., a captive management firm he founded, where he provided alternative risk solutions to middle-market, privately held businesses. He is a licensed CPA in New York and holds the Chartered Global Management Accountant and Personal Financial Specialist designations. He is a member of the AICPA, the New York State Society of CPAs (NYSSCPA), the Captive Insurance Companies Association (CICA) and the Delaware Captive Association, where he serves on the board of directors and its legislative committee.

Dimmling brings more than 25 years of financial, operational and restructuring experience in the commercial insurance industry. In his new role, he will assist corporate clients with stabilizing and enhancing financial and operational performance for stakeholders and policy holders. Prior to joining A&M, he was chief operating officer at Trenwick America Reinsurance Corporation, as well as a senior vice president and chief administrative officer at Centre Group Holdings, LLC. In these roles he provided turnaround and restructuring leadership resulting in significant improvements in financial and operating performance. His other key accomplishments have included cash flow modeling, identifying trapped capital opportunities and developing a long-term operating structure in a run-off environment. He previously served on the Board of Directors of several reinsurance companies, a catastrophic healthcare company, investment bank and operable wall manufacturer. He is a Certified Insolvency and Restructuring Advisor, and a member of the Association of Insolvency and Restructuring Advisors, Turnaround Management Association and Insurance Federation of New York.

With a broad range of regulatory, receivership, troubled company and management experience, Hughes will lead regulatory initiatives within the group. As former special deputy receiver and chief executive officer of the Office of the Special Deputy Receiver (OSD) in Illinois, he led business transformations in productivity, financial reporting and technology, and oversaw record creditor distributions, estate closings and productivity achievements. Before serving as Illinois Special Deputy, he held senior regulatory positions with the state, including General Counsel to the Department of Financial and Professional Regulation. A leader on national insurance policy issues, he served on the National Association of Insurance Commissioner’s (NAIC’s) Receivership & Insolvency Task Force; chaired NAIC groups focused on Dodd-Frank Receivership Implementation and treatment of derivatives in insurance insolvencies; and contributed to NAIC work addressing alternative resolution mechanisms, complex receivership administration, separate accounts and reinsurance. He is first vice president and director of the International Association of Insurance Receivers and a Commissioner to the National Conference of Commissioners on Uniform State Laws.

Alvarez & Marsal (A&M) Insurance Advisory Services provides a full range of consulting services to healthy, underperforming and troubled organizations looking to solve complex problems.