Joseph Eppers has become senior vice president and chief investment officer of Selective Insurance Company of America, a subsidiary of Selective Insurance Group.
Previously Eppers was a director in BlackRock's financial institutions group working on investment strategies for insurers, and from 2005 to 2013 was a senior member of the investment team running $6bn-plus portfolio of Endurance Specialty Holdings.
His arrival at Selective is opportune. After-tax investment income in the first quarter was $21m, down 20% compared with a year previously.
The company attributed the decline largely to losses in energy-exposed limited partnerships that were hit by lower oil prices in the fourth quarter of 2014, as well as to a decline in alternative investment income and the continued low interest-rate environment.