American Family Elects Mary A. Theilen as Personal Lines President

MADISON, Wis., Aug. 25 -- American Family Insurance issued the following news release:

The American Family Insurance board of directors has promoted Mary A. Theilen, former chief enterprise risk officer for the company, to serve as Personal Lines president.

Personal Lines is American Family's largest division accountable for property-casualty (P&C) insurance product design, development and implementation with a focus on the customer. This area is also responsible for P&C insurance underwriting, services and claims. Theilen succeeds Mary Schmoeger, who recently retired.

"Mary Theilen is a leader who has brought innovations into American Family's operation, who also builds and works collaboratively with others and lives our values," says Jessie Stauffacher, American Family's chief operating officer.

Theilen served as enterprise chief risk officer since 2016 after serving as enterprise risk management vice president for the previous six years. As chief risk officer, Theilen led all P&C loss-reserving and risk-management functions, including catastrophe and capital management and corporate and operational risk management. She worked closely with Personal Lines operations, including claims and product management, to ensure the adequacy of loss reserves, directing business analysis, risk modeling and loss-prevention programs.

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During Theilen's tenure, she also worked across the enterprise to initiate new risk-management approaches and implement new technologies that increase the company's speed and effectiveness in responding to catastrophes, deploying capital and measuring risk.

Theilen began her career at American Family in 1999 as an actuarial analyst. She was named specialty lines director in the Actuarial Division in 2004. She also served as homeowners lines director, risk pricing director and as a business performance and planning director at American Family.

She earned a bachelor's degree in math from the University of Northern Iowa. She is a Fellow of the Casualty Actuarial Society, a Chartered Property Casualty Underwriter, a Chartered Enterprise Risk Analyst, and a member of the American Academy of Actuaries. She has a master's certificate in project management.