ALBANY, NY - Business Insurance reports that Governor David Paterson has named Kermitt Brooks the acting superintendent of the New York State Insurance Department, effective July 3, 2009, when superintendent Eric Dinallo resigns to take a position as visiting professor at New York University's Stern School of Business.

According to the Insurance Department, Kermitt Brooks was named First Deputy Superintendent of the Insurance Department in May 2007. As First Deputy, Mr. Brooks was the second in command of the Department, overseeing the functions handled by the Deputy Superintendents of the Department as well as the operations of the agency. In addition, he directly supervised the Life Insurance Bureau.

Mr. Brooks served for almost eight years in the office of New York State Attorney General Eliot Spitzer, joining as Chief of the Claims Bureau in 1999. From 2002 until the beginning of 2007, Mr. Brooks served as Deputy Attorney General for Operations, with responsibility for the day to day operations of the 2,000-employee agency, which has a $220 million budget and 33 offices across the state. In addition to administering the Attorney General’s office, Mr. Brooks also led the investigation into employee benefit insurance, which resulted in settlements with the nation’s largest group disability and insurance carriers and forced a major group insurance broker to refund to clients undisclosed payment made to brokers.

Before joining the Attorney General’s office, Mr. Brooks served as Counsel in the law department at Metropolitan Life Insurance Company in 1998, and as an Associate in the commercial litigation group at Nixon, Peabody LLP from 1989 to 1998.

Mr. Brooks earned a Bachelor of Arts degree with a major in international relations from the James Madison College at Michigan State University in 1986. He earned his law degree in 1989 from the University of Michigan School of Law where he was a contributing editor to the Michigan Law Review.