Insurance Business

A memorial service for Linda Alia Simmont, former owner of a health insurance business, will be held at 2 p.m. tomorrow at the Unitarian Universalist Church of Annapolis, 333 Dubois Road. Mrs. Simmont, 51 and a quadriplegic, was found dead Aug. 18 in Bodkin Creek by divers in a search near her Pasadena home. She had been reported missing the evening before after failing to return home from her usual ride around the neighborhood in an electric wheelchair, and Anne Arundel County police said yesterday that the death remains under investigation.

Edward H. "Ham" Welbourn Jr., a retired insurance executive and World War II veteran, died April 29 of complications from dementia at the Blakehurst retirement community in Towson. He was 98. The son of Edward H. Welbourn, who owned Rennous Kleinle Brush Manufacturers in Catonsville, and Emma Dawson Welbourn, a homemaker, Edward Hambleton Welbourn was born in Baltimore and raised in Catonsville. After graduating in 1934 from the Gilman School, Mr. Welbourn enrolled at Haverford College, where he was a government major and earned a bachelor's degree in 1938.

Joseph Brendan Herron, a retired insurance executive who enjoyed working with youths, died of an autoimmune disorder Friday at Charlestown Retirement Community. The former Timonium resident was 74. Mr. Herron was born in Wilkes-Barre, Pa., and his family moved to Irvington in 1939. He was a 1948 graduate of Calvert Hall College High School and earned a bachelor's degree in business from Loyola College in 1952. He served in the Marine Corps before taking sales positions with Johnson & Johnson and Sunbeam Corp.

Alan D. Hecht, a retired insurance executive active in his industry for more than six decades who was also a national leader in his field, died of congestive heart failure April 2 at Levindale Hebrew Geriatric Center and hospital. The Pikesville resident was 94. Born in Baltimore, he was the son of Lee I. Hecht, an attorney and judge of the old Appeals Tax Court of Baltimore, and Miriam Dannenberg Hecht, a homemaker. Raised on Bateman Avenue, he was a 1936 graduate of Forest Park High School, where he was editor of the yearbook.

St. Paul Cos., the Minnesota property and casualty insurer that acquired USF&G, announced yesterday that it might cut 500 to 600 more jobs by the end of next year, a move that could include some job losses in Baltimore.The reductions were billed as a way to offset the company's falling profits in its commercial insurance business, and would be in addition to 2,000 job cuts already announced when St. Paul Cos. bought USF&G for $3.5 billion in April.Before it was acquired, USF&G employed about 2,500 people at its Mount Washington complex.

Metropolitan Life Insurance Co. announced yesterday that it is buying the personal insurance business of St. Paul Cos. Inc. for $600 million, but it could not say how many of the 1,700 St. Paul employees will be retained, including 115 in Baltimore.The company is optimistic that many workers in St. Paul's auto and home insurance operations will be asked to stay on, said Joe Madden, a spokesman for Met Life Auto & Home in Warwick, R.I., a subsidiary of Metropolitan Life Insurance of New York.

Edward H. "Ham" Welbourn Jr., a retired insurance executive and World War II veteran, died April 29 of complications from dementia at the Blakehurst retirement community in Towson. He was 98. The son of Edward H. Welbourn, who owned Rennous Kleinle Brush Manufacturers in Catonsville, and Emma Dawson Welbourn, a homemaker, Edward Hambleton Welbourn was born in Baltimore and raised in Catonsville. After graduating in 1934 from the Gilman School, Mr. Welbourn enrolled at Haverford College, where he was a government major and earned a bachelor's degree in 1938.

Chandeliers were the first thing Joe Niermann designed. And it was five years before he sold one. Now the bejeweled iron and crystal silhouettes are his signature. "I don't really care for the crystals, one way or the other," said Niermann, though millions of them are stored in large paint buckets in the Millersville strip mall he converted into the Niermann Weeks company factory. "I want the design to be strong enough so that it doesn't need crystals. " But it is the crystals — from tiny, man-made beads imported from the Czech Republic to the fist-sized rock crystals found in nature — that identify Niermann's light fixtures, some as small as a wall sconce and others 6 feet tall and 6 feet across and weighing 300 pounds.

Carle A. Jackson, retired insurance executive and a former Maryland Racing Commissioner, died Monday of complications of a long illness at Pickersgill in Towson. He was 88.An insurance underwriter and broker for more than 60 years, Mr. Jackson retired in 1992 from Alexander & Alexander, an insurance firm which took over Riall Jackson & Co. in 1968. Riall Jackson & Co. had been founded in 1904 by Mr. Jackson's father, Howard W. Jackson, four-term mayor of Baltimore."He had a list of traditional Baltimore accounts as long as your arm," said Roland Forster, senior account manager and friend for 20 years.

USF&G Corp. said yesterday that it earned $20 million in the third quarter as its shift toward higher-profit areas of the insurance business continued to make progress."

Joan D'Angelo, a homemaker and Baltimore Symphony Orchestra volunteer, died of complications from pneumonia March 15 at Bay Woods in Annapolis. She was 90. Born Joan Shumaker in Allentown, Pa., she attended school in Lancaster and was a 1941 graduate of Catonsville High School. She also attended the Bard Avon School in downtown Baltimore. In 1945, she married E. Gordon Leatherman, an insurance business owner. He died in 1995. She raised her family in a house at the corner of Malvern Avenue and Army Road in Ruxton.

A recent headline stated that "Congress approves more aid for Sandy's victims" (Jan 5). Really? My take is that what Congress did was require our children to borrow another $10 billion to pay contractual obligations of government insurance claims. Insurance premiums are only covering about 1 percent of previous claims, and our children will pay the other 99 percent. Soon another $50 billion will be added to the tab, and Sandy will not be the last disaster. The government needs to either get out of the flood-insurance business or make premiums cover outlays.

Aetna's plans announced Monday to acquire Coventry Health Care Inc. for $5.6 billion could catapult the insurance giant to the front of an industry race to capitalize on Obamacare and the health needs of aging baby boomers. The deal, subject to approval by Coventry stockholders and industry regulators, is expected to be completed in mid-2013. Aetna said it would pay about $5.6 billion to acquire Bethesda-based Coventry and will take on the company's debt, driving up the total value of the transaction to $7.3 billion.

Chandeliers were the first thing Joe Niermann designed. And it was five years before he sold one. Now the bejeweled iron and crystal silhouettes are his signature. "I don't really care for the crystals, one way or the other," said Niermann, though millions of them are stored in large paint buckets in the Millersville strip mall he converted into the Niermann Weeks company factory. "I want the design to be strong enough so that it doesn't need crystals. " But it is the crystals — from tiny, man-made beads imported from the Czech Republic to the fist-sized rock crystals found in nature — that identify Niermann's light fixtures, some as small as a wall sconce and others 6 feet tall and 6 feet across and weighing 300 pounds.

Skydivers and motorcycle riders can have a hard time getting life insurance. Why shouldn't people building in the path of future floods and hurricanes have a hard time getting storm insurance? Thousands of houses have popped up along the Chesapeake and Atlantic in Maryland even as knowledge of global warming and storm threats has grown. Neither state planners nor the Chesapeake Bay Foundation knows exactly how many, but just in Ocean City and surrounding Worcester County, 11,000 dwellings have appeared since 1990, the Census Bureau says.

Joseph Brendan Herron, a retired insurance executive who enjoyed working with youths, died of an autoimmune disorder Friday at Charlestown Retirement Community. The former Timonium resident was 74. Mr. Herron was born in Wilkes-Barre, Pa., and his family moved to Irvington in 1939. He was a 1948 graduate of Calvert Hall College High School and earned a bachelor's degree in business from Loyola College in 1952. He served in the Marine Corps before taking sales positions with Johnson & Johnson and Sunbeam Corp.

A headline on a story about Geico Corp. in yesterday's Business section incorrectly characterized a transaction between Geico and Aetna Life & Casualty Co. Geico has agreed to transfer, not sell, its homeowners insurance business to Aetna Life & Casualty.The Sun regrets the errors.Geico Corp., the Bethesda insurer, has given up on its relatively small homeowners insurance business and will transfer to Aetna Life & Casualty, the companies said yesterday.Geico writes homeowners policies through a wholly owned insurance agency called Insurance Counselors Inc., which is based in Maryland.

Glen E. Swartz, a retired insurance salesman, died Sunday at a hospital in Staunton, Va., after a short illness. He was 80 and moved from Woodlawn to Staunton about 10 years ago.Services for Mr. Swartz were being held today at the Lindsey funeral establishment in Harrisonburg, Va.He retired in 1975 as a salesman for the Chesapeake Life Insurance Co., where he had worked since moving to Baltimore in 1960.Earlier, he worked in the insurance business in Staunton. Born in Dayton, Va., he was a graduate of the Roanoke (Va.)

L. Glen Rock, founder of an insurance company and an avid sailor who loved being on the Chesapeake Bay, died of pancreatic cancer Monday at his home in Timonium. He was 79. Born in Cleveland, Mr. Rock was raised in Baltimore and graduated from Polytechnic Institute in 1944. He enlisted in the Army that year and later fought in the Battle of the Bulge. He was honorably discharged in July 1946, said his son, Lee Rock of Cockeysville. After his discharge, he continued his education at the College of William and Mary in Williamsburg, Va., where he graduated in 1950.

A memorial service for Linda Alia Simmont, former owner of a health insurance business, will be held at 2 p.m. tomorrow at the Unitarian Universalist Church of Annapolis, 333 Dubois Road. Mrs. Simmont, 51 and a quadriplegic, was found dead Aug. 18 in Bodkin Creek by divers in a search near her Pasadena home. She had been reported missing the evening before after failing to return home from her usual ride around the neighborhood in an electric wheelchair, and Anne Arundel County police said yesterday that the death remains under investigation.