2022 Women to Watch Awards Americas EMEA
Christine Chipurnoi Executive vice president
USI Insurance Services LLC
Valhalla, New York
When she sought her first job, Christine Chipurnoi thought the recruitment advertisement for a “Girl Friday” in a one-person insurance office in Bellmore, Long Island, would be perfect because it would leave her free the remaining four days of the week to raise her young daughter.
Her assumptions were dashed, however, when she was hired and told “see you Monday.”
As the lone administrator, she became the only resource for answering customer queries and gave herself an education in personal lines insurance as she researched answers for customers.
After a year and a half, she decided to look for another job and decided her insurance experience would make it her “best path.”
After a series of personal lines jobs, she had the opportunity to be a commercial insurance rater and was sent to Aetna Inc. to be trained, which “actually became the backbone and some of the best information to help me get where I am today,” she said.
She worked her way up from account executive through team leader and commercial lines manager at BWD Group LLC, which she joined in 1989, before moving to Wells Fargo & Co.’s insurance brokerage business in 2002. USI bought the business in 2017.
Ms. Chipurnoi said her favorite part of the job is solving challenges for clients and executing deals in the marketplace.
The hard market of the past few years has brought mounting challenges.
“I’ve never worked harder in my life than I have in the past four to five years since the market hardened,” Ms. Chipurnoi said. The challenges, though, have brought with them opportunities, she said, noting she recently saved a client significant premium by restructuring parts of its insurance program.
Ronnie Gross, president and chief operating officer of financial services firm G. Holdings LLC in New York, said Ms. Chipurnoi has worked with his family’s business for almost 20 years and “has successfully placed our insurance where others have failed. She has always advised us and acted with our best interests in mind and has done so with a directness and level of candor rarely found in today’s world.”
