Clint THOMPSON, was appointed Executive Vice president and CFO within Hannover Life Reassurance Company of America, effective Jan. 1, 2017, thus taking over the positions held by David WHEAT, who will retire after June 30.

THOMPSON had been chief risk officer for Hannover Re U.S. since 2011. Before joining Hannover Re U.S., he was a senior risk officer for Aegon, where he was responsible for coordinating market risk and asset-liability management. He will take on a "new and expanded role" with the company, Peter SCHAEFER, President and CEO of Hannover Re U.S., said in a statement.

WHEAT's career spanned 35 years in the insurance and reinsurance industries. Prior to joining Hannover Re U.S., he was CFO at ING Americas following 17 years with EY.

Also, Lisa SMITH has been promoted to Executive Vice president and COO, effective Jan. 1. Her new role includes responsibility for information technology, human resources and the mortality solutions business unit operations for Hannover Re U.S.

SMITH joined the company in 2009 as senior vice president of operations when Hannover Re U.S. acquired the ING reinsurance portfolio from Scottish Re. She is based at the company's office in Denver, Colorado.

Hannover Re U.S. is licensed and/or accredited in all 50 U.S. states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico and Guam. It is the North American life and health reinsurance subsidiary of Hannover Re Group.

Parent group Hannover Re recently raised its earnings guidance to group net income of about €1.17 billion (US$1.25 billion) for 2016 from a profit target of at least €950 million, compared with net income of €1.15 billion a year earlier (Best's News Service, Feb. 7, 2017).

Hannover Life Reassurance Company of America and Hannover Ruck SE have current Best's Financial Strength Ratings of A+ (Superior).