Zurich Insurance Group AG is “prepared to shrink” some of its businesses after being caught off guard by the scale of claims it had to absorb last year, according to Cecilia Reyes, the company’s chief risk officer.
"We were surprised, obviously, by the poor underwriting results in the general insurance business,” she said in an interview at the company’s headquarters in Zurich. “We need to either re-price or, if we cannot get the right level of compensation to the risk, we should walk away from some risks.”
Reyes switched to chief risk officer from chief investment officer in July, shortly before unusually high claims pushed the company’s general insurance unit to a third-quarter loss of $183 million and prompted it to drop a bid for Britain’s RSA Insurance Group Plc. Zurich is bringing back Mario Greco, who oversaw general insurance before he left in 2012, this time as chief executive officer starting in May to replace Martin Senn who stepped down in December.
“We prided ourselves on that reputation for underwriting excellence, but we didn’t understand our exposure to potential losses,” Reyes said. “We have already taken actions to improve that.”
Zurich’s general insurance unit has been one of the worst performers among its peers in the 35-member STOXX Europe 600 Insurance Index for the last two years, measured by the combined ratio, or what it pays out in claims and expenses compared with premiums it collects. It had the fourth-highest ratio in 2014, the last full year for which data are available.