FIRST QUARTER 2005 VOLUME 12 NUMBER 1 - arias·us

in focus
Michael C.
Zeller
William A.
Wilson
William A. Wilson
William Wilson is an experienced financial
services executive whose career in the life
and health insurance industry spans more
than 35 years. The diversity of his
employment opportunities has provided him
with the broadest base of knowledge, and
has also resulted in his serving in a number
of industry leadership positions. He is the
principal of Wilson Advocacy and
Consulting..
He has served as General Counsel of four
major life and health insurers whose
product offerings and operations reflect the
entire industry. In a major career diversion,
he served as Chief Marketing Officer for a
large California insurer. The predominance
of his employment has been with American
General Corporation, now a part of the
American International Group.
Throughout his career, Mr. Wilson has been
an integral part of the relationship between
insurer and reinsurer. In addition to being
responsible for the review and approval of
treaties with all contracting reinsurers, he
has independently participated as a panelist
in some 15 arbitrations involving not only
reinsurance, but also marketing
compensation disputes. He has also served
as a provider of expert testimony.
Mr. Wilson has been an active participant in
industry activities throughout his career. He
is the former President of the Association of
Life Insurance Counsel, and has served on its
Board of Governors. He has chaired, or was a
member of, numerous American Council of
Life Insurance committees, as well as several
state trade association committees,
including the Chairmanship of the
Association of California Life Insurance
Companies Executive Committee. Mr.
Wilson was involved in the formative years
of the National Organization of Life and
Health Insurance Guaranty Associations, and
served on its Board for nine consecutive
years, in addition to serving as a Board
member on 12 different state guaranty
associations.
He graduated from the University of
Nebraska, with a B.S. in Business
Administration, and a Juris Doctor in Law. He
is a graduate of the Harvard School of
Negotiation, and is certified as a arbitrator
by both ARIAS•U.S. and the National
Association of Securities Dealers (NASD).
Michael C. Zeller
P A G E 3 6
Michael Zeller is Vice President in the
Reinsurance Services Division of American
International Group, Inc., where his
responsibilities include supervising the
contract wording department (treaty,
facultative, security agreements),
underwriting assumed programs, and
general administration.
Before joining AIG in 2000, Mr. Zeller
represented insurers, reinsurers, brokers, and
intermediaries in reinsurance and insurance
arbitration and litigation as an Of Counsel in
the New York office of Gibson, Dunn &
Crutcher (1998-1999), as an Associate and
Partner of Grais & Phillips (1990-1998), and
as an Associate at Grais & Richards (1989-
1990). He started working in private practice,
specializing in insurance litigation, at Hughes
Hubbard & Reed (1987-1989).
Mr. Zeller’s areas of expertise include
nondisclosure and misrepresentation,
allocation and aggregation of toxic torts,
fiduciary duty, brokers liability, expenserelated
issues, follow the
fortunes/settlements, utmost good faith, and
ethics in arbitration.
Mr. Zeller is a 1982 graduate of Wesleyan
University (Phi Beta Kappa) and a 1986
graduate of Stanford Law School (With
Distinction). He has written extensively on
reinsurance and is a frequent speaker at
industry conferences.
Mr. Zeller serves on the Board of Directors of
the Association of Insurance & Reinsurance
Run-Off Companies and is a Member of the
Insurance and Reinsurance Dispute
Resolution Task Force. He is also a Member of
the ARIAS Ethics Committee