Zurich Insurance Academy Adjunct Faculty

Kara Higginbotham

Vice President, Professional Liability & Cyber Corporate Accounts

Zurich North America

Kara Higginbotham is Vice President, Corporate Accounts Manager for Professional Liability and Cyber at Zurich North America, where she leads an underwriting team responsible for assessing Errors and Omissions (E&O) and cyber risk, pricing, and servicing large, complex organizations in the U.S. across various industries. Prior to joining Zurich, Kara began her insurance career as a cyber and E&O underwriter at AIG before transitioning to a product manager role responsible for creating underwriting strategy, spearheading new product development and managing the profitability of the carrier’s media liability and reputational risk insurance product and portfolio.

Educational background and certifications
Kara holds a Bachelor of Business Administration degree in finance from The University of Texas at Austin. She maintains a Registered Professional Liability Underwriter (RPLU) designation.

Robert Malone

Vice President, Professional Liability & Cyber Middle Market

Zurich North America

Robert Malone is Vice President, Middle Market Manager for Professional Liability and Cyber at Zurich North America, where he is responsible for overall strategy execution and profitability for an underwriting team across the U.S. Prior to this role, he was Team Lead for the national account segment within the Professional Liability and Cyber group. Robert was a cybersecurity strategy consultant at Booz Allen Hamilton, where he gained valuable cyber and risk management experience on the client side. He began his career as an underwriter in management liability at The Travelers Companies.

Educational background and certifications
Robert holds a Bachelor of Science degree in finance and business law from Fordham University. He is a Certified Information Systems Security Professional (CISSP).

Steve Pannucci

Head of Professional Liability, Zurich Wholesale & Surplus

Zurich North America

Steve Pannucci is the Head of Professional Liability for Zurich Wholesale & Surplus at Zurich North America. In this role, Steve is responsible for the management of specialty professional and security and privacy (cyber) liability, commercial insurance products for the wholesale broker channel. Prior to his current role, Steve was responsible for the management of Middle Market Specialty Professional Errors & Omissions (E&O) segment in the U.S. with Zurich’s Management Solutions Group. Before coming to Zurich, Steve worked as a regional underwriting manager for the Financial Lines group at AIG, where he managed commercial insurance products related to professional and media liability, as well as network security and privacy. During his time at AIG, Steve also worked in the sales and marketing group as a business development manager, focusing on growth and relationship management with key trading partners. Prior to joining AIG in 2004, he was an underwriter in the environmental liability space with Kemper Insurance and worked as a commercial insurance broker with Hays Companies in Boston.

Educational background and certifications
Steve graduated from the University of New Hampshire with a Bachelor of Science degree in 1996.

This is intended as a general description of certain types of services, tools and courses available to brokers through the companies of Zurich North America. Zurich does not guarantee a particular outcome and further assumes no liability in connection with the provision of services. Zurich reserves the right to make changes in course offerings at any time.