Former Fleet Sales Chief at Helm Of South Carolina Life Insurer

Liberty Corp. of Greenville, S.C., has hired the former president of Fleet Financial Group's insurance sales effort to lead its own life insurance unit.

As president of Liberty Life Insurance Co., Robert Evans, 44, will be responsible for building the insurer's agency division and direct marketing operation, which includes sales to banks.

Mr. Evans will succeed Ron Loewen, 51, on March 15. Mr. Loewen, who led the unit for two years, is returning to Cosmos Broadcasting, another Liberty Corp. unit, as a vice president.

Insurance sales through banks are one of the fastest-growing segments of Liberty's business, said Hayne Hipp, president of the holding company.

Mr. Evans was a good fit for the job, because "we were looking for someone who had overall experience but particularly had experience with" bank insurance, Mr. Hipp said. Mr. Evans had been working as a consultant, Mr. Hipp said.

Mr. Evans was delegated to build Fleet's insurance sales program from scratch. He left Fleet in 1997 when the banking company scaled back its insurance efforts. Before that, he worked at Travelers Insurance Corp.

Liberty Corp.'s insurance and broadcasting operations brought in $584 million in revenue last year.

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