OAK BROOK, IL – The National Fraternal Congress of America (NFCA) announced that Katharine E. Rounthwaite, Vice President, General Counsel and Executive Secretary of Foresters™, was elected Vice Chair of the NFCA Board of Directors. Rounthwaite was installed in the NFCA office at the 120th NFCA Annual Meeting, September 7-9, in Scottsdale, Arizona.

After serving as a director for two years, Rounthwaite, as Vice Chair of the NFCA Board, will continue to provide strategic direction to the association that represents 75 fraternal benefit societies. Fraternal benefit societies are not-for-profit membership organizations offering volunteer, social and networking opportunities, along with insurance and other financial products.

Prior to joining Foresters in 1993, Rounthwaite worked as Counsel at Crown Life Insurance Company and at Aetna Canada now Maritime Life.  In December 1998, she was appointed Vice President and General Counsel, and then in March 2003, she was appointed Executive Secretary to the Board of Directors. 

In her 26 years of practicing law, Rounthwaite has developed expertise in the areas of insurance law, litigation management, employment relations, and corporate commercial law, with a focus on the U.S. insurance market place.  She earned her Bachelor of Arts and Juris Doctor at the University of Toronto, and her Masters at Carleton University. 

She was elected to a three-year term on the NFCA Board in September 2004.  She also has served on the NFCA’s Law Committee since 1998, and served as Committee Chair since September 2004.

As her current community service commitment, Rounthwaite volunteers as a Board member of the Bayview Community Hospice.  She has fulfilled a variety of other community service roles in the past, such as Chair of her children’s School Parents Association, and Convener of Girls Basketball League for six years. She and her husband, David Lipton, have four children between the ages of 17 and 23.

About Foresters
Founded in 1874, Foresters™ helps individuals and families achieve financial security with its innovative portfolio of life insurance products and annuities. Foresters shares its financial strength with its members, who are customers, through complimentary life, health and education benefits that help its 850,000 eligible members and their families in the United States, Canada and the United Kingdom. Foresters provides opportunities that inspire its members to make a difference in their communities. For more information, please visit www.foresters.biz

Foresters™ is a trademark of The Independent Order of Foresters, a fraternal benefit society, 789 Don Mills Road, Toronto, Canada M3C 1T9.

About the NFCA
The 120-year-old NFCA unites 75 not-for-profit fraternal benefit societies operating in all 50 states, the District of Columbia and Canada. The association represents 10 million people in 36,000 local chapters, making it one of America’s largest member networks. Fraternal benefit societies provide their members with leadership, social, educational, spiritual, patriotic, scholarship, financial and volunteer-service opportunities.  Combined, the NFCA’s member-societies maintain more than $317 billion of life insurance-in-force and, in 2005 alone, contributed almost $400 million to charitable and fraternal programs.  In addition, fraternalists volunteered 93 million hours toward community-service projects during that same period.