Triad Guaranty completes severing ties with execs [Winston-Salem Journal, N.C.]

Jan. 04--Triad Guaranty Inc. confirmed in a regulatory filing Friday that three top executives, including president and chief executive Kenneth Jones, have been fired as part of the company being taken over by its regulator, the Illinois Insurance Department.

The filing said Jones, Earl Wall, secretary and general counsel, and Shirley Gaddy, operations, were terminated from those roles with subsidiary Triad Guaranty Insurance Corp. on Dec. 27.

On Thursday, the executives resigned from those roles with the parent company. The filing said the parent com-pany could hire Jones and Wall as consultants.

William Ratliff III, the parent company's chairman, has taken over as president and chief executive. Ratliff as-sumed both posts on an interim basis after Mark Tonnesen resigned as president and chief executive in July 2008 and Jones was hired in October 2008.

Triad Guaranty is a mortgage-insurance company that protects residential-mortgage lenders, such as banks, credit unions and mortgage brokers, from losses if homeowners default on their loans.

In June 2008 -- six months after the financial crisis began -- Triad said it discontinued writing new mortgage in-surance policies and began conducting "an orderly transition of its business to runoff." That means the company's revenue coming from existing policies will eventually expire.

At that time, Triad officials said they expected the company to exist until at least 2015 to 2017. But since the company entered runoff status, at least 206 of its 250 local jobs have been eliminated.

On Friday, Kenneth Dwyer, chief accounting officer for the parent company, resigned from that post. He con-tinues to serve as chief accounting officer for the subsidiary.

The companies were placed into rehabilitation under the Illinois Insurance code Dec. 11. The department has ju-risdiction over the companies because they are domiciled there.

Paul Miller, acting special deputy receiver in the department's Office of Special Receiver in Chicago, said Dec. 28 the agency terminated the three executives as part of preserving the company's assets and protecting its policy-holders and creditors.

"Our goal is to run things as smoothly as possible," Miller said. "Policyholders are still paying premiums. We are doing business as usual -- processing claims and making payments."

On Nov. 14, Triad reported a $33.3 million loss in the third quarter, compared with a $31.3 million loss in the second quarter and a $37.5 million lost a year ago. Its deficit in assets was at $802.8 million on Sept. 30 with $771.4 million on June 30.

rcraver@wsjournal.com

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