About Dave Nickelson-Rueschhoff
As Featured On
Dave Nickelson-Rueschhoff is a complex property specialist, Vice President and National Complex Property Practice Leader at OneDigital, licensed Missouri broker, and board member.
Dave is a practitioner at heart. He builds placements for the property risks other brokers set aside and leads a national practice that solves them. Today he partners with producers, account teams, and carriers across the country from his base in Saint Louis, Missouri.
Solving The Risks Others Set Aside
Dave Nickelson-Rueschhoff has a genuine appreciation for the difficult end of the property market. For him, a hard-to-place risk is not a problem to route elsewhere, it is the work itself. He treats every challenged account as a question of construction rather than a question of appetite, and he starts by understanding the client's operation before he ever approaches a market. Working across industries and exposures, Dave has developed a method for building placements that carriers can price with confidence. He understands what an underwriter needs to see, because he spent years as one. He knows how catastrophe exposure translates into terms, because he modeled it. That combination lets him structure programs, layer capacity, and negotiate conditions with a level of technical fluency that shortens the distance between a difficult submission and a viable solution.
Leading Teams And Building The Bench
Dave Nickelson-Rueschhoff leads by staying close to the technical work. He has managed underwriting departments, senior account teams, and now a national practice, and in each role his focus has been the same: raise the standard of the people around him. He trains, mentors, and develops rather than delegates, because he believes craft in this industry is transferred person to person. As National Complex Property Practice Leader at OneDigital, Dave serves as the point of contact for challenged property risk across the entire organization. He partners with producers, account executives, and account managers to qualify opportunities, market difficult exposures, and hold the line on client deliverables through the renewal cycle. His teams operate with a client first discipline that shows up in preparation, accuracy, and response time.
Dave Nickelson-Rueschhoff's Story
Dave Nickelson-Rueschhoff is a product of Saint Louis. He graduated from St. Louis University High School, began taking business coursework at Webster University, and entered the insurance industry from the ground floor rather than the executive track. His first role handled inland marine accounts of low to medium complexity, reviewing source underwriting materials and learning the mechanics of documentation before he ever touched pricing. From there he moved through catastrophe modeling, inland marine and related property underwriting, underwriting leadership, and product management, then into broking as a senior account manager and account executive on a national property practice. Along the way he earned a B.S. in Business Studies from Southern New Hampshire University, majoring in Operations Leadership & Management with a minor in Organizational Leadership, graduating summa cum laude in 2021 while working full time, and added three accreditations through The Institutes Knowledge Group. He gives time to the St. Louis chapter of the Risk and Insurance Management Society, and has volunteered with Mid-America Transplant and the Washington University School of Medicine.
Career
Every seat in the risk equation, from regional underwriting through to national practice leadership.
- May 2024 – Present
OneDigital (fka HM Risk)
VP, National Complex Property Practice Leader
National subject-matter authority for complex property placements, acting as a strategic overlay resource for producers and account teams across the platform. Architects insurance specifications and renewal strategies for hard-to-place and distressed property portfolios across admitted and E&S markets, and works with teams of account managers, account executives, and producers across the organization.
- November 2019 – May 2024
Lockton Companies (Midwest Series)
Account Executive — Complex Property Practice
Owned and grew a complex property book at one of the world’s largest independent brokerages. Led renewal programs for high-value and distressed property accounts from exposure analysis through market negotiation, and coordinated claims, loss control, analytics and surety resources into integrated solutions.
- January 2016 – November 2019
Vanliner Insurance Company
Underwriting and Product Manager
Held full P&L accountability for a book of roughly $25M spanning workers compensation, general liability, cargo, auto liability, non-trucking liability and auto physical damage. Supervised a department of twenty-one underwriters and underwriting operations technicians, and built an underwriting audit program that tightened risk selection discipline.
- November 2014 – January 2016
Allianz Global Corporate and Specialty
Inland Marine and Related Property Underwriter, Midwest Region
Underwrote a Midwest regional book of inland marine and related property risks, developing pricing recommendations from loss history and P&L data, and selectively placing facultative reinsurance on complex or outsized risks.
Credentials
Awarded by The Institutes Knowledge Group. Active Property & Casualty insurance broker license, State of Missouri.