Barlyn named U.S. insurance reporter for Reuters

Carmel Crimmins, financial services editor for Reuters in the Americas, sent out the following announcement on Wednesday:

The Amers Finance team has some exciting news to share: ace financial enforcement reporter Suzanne Barlyn is moving to the insurance beat, effective immediately.

Suzanne joined Reuters in 2011 to cover the brokerage regulator Finra, and last year began covering New York’s Department of Financial Services and financial enforcement cases. During that time, she has broken news about a breadth of topics – from UBS advisers pushing risky Puerto Rico bonds on investors to regulators trying to get their arms around emerging financial technologies like Bitcoin to Wells Fargo’s sham accounts scandal. This year, she authored a special report on how Delaware became a proud hub for shell companies that help bad guys avoid taxes, launder money from drug-trafficking or even conceal terrorist financing. She has gotten her scoops through FOIAs, leaked secret recordings and direct phone calls to government officials when their communications staffers are less-than-helpful.

Suzanne, a trained lawyer, will now use those tenacious reporting skills to cover the insurance industry. It’s a huge beat that includes not just actuarial modeling, but investing massive balance sheets, responding to disruptive technologies, combating regulators’ attempts to deem them “too big to fail,” and occasionally charming Warren Buffett with a little green gecko.

In this role, Suzanne will work closely with other members of the finance team in New York and Washington, as well as colleagues abroad, to break news about this important sector and offer our readers insight no one else has. She will report to Lauren LaCapra, deputy Amers finance editor. Please pass along any tips, and wish her targets luck in the new role! (They’ll need it.)

Suzanne’s coverage in the financial enforcement area will be taken up by Karen Freifeld, who reports to Anthony Lin, and other members of the legal team. Karen, who previously covered bank investigations has already clocked up two scoops this week working with European colleagues. Congratulations to Karen!