It was a big year for CEO of general insurance, Australia and New Zealand, Rajbir Nanra and the
Zurich Australia team. Nanra tells
Insurance Business that 2016 was all about embedding the changes announced in the final quarter of the previous year.
“It’s been really good to see the progress we’ve made around that focus we had on the business,” he says.
“That led obviously to much more reengagement of Zurich with the market - in particular, with our brokers – and that also obviously involved reinvesting in our frontline market-facing people.”
Nanra also mentions the rebuilding of Zurich’s executive team.
“We have announced during this year the bringing on board of Steve Ord as executive general manager, commercial, Hilary Bates as the new chief claims officer, and Stuart Farquharson as chief financial officer. That, for me, has been a huge success – being able to attract great talent to Zurich, even during times when we have been reinvigorating and turning ourselves around and reengaging with the market.”
Nanra expects the impact of cyber risk on the evolving risk landscape will be one of the industry’s greatest challenges in the year ahead and it’s already a priority for Zurich. In August, the insurer launched its DigitalResolve solution to assist businesses in managing cybercrime.
“I think, in particular in the SME sector, we are seeing a lot of questions around cyber risk,” he says.
“That’s one area in particular we will look at and make sure that we work closely with our brokers to ensure that our customers and consumers are well educated around the threat of cyber and have the appropriate coverage and risk management put through the business to minimise any disruption.”
While 2016 was about reengagement, Nanra says this year’s focus will be around building on this.
“2017 is about further building our presence in this market, and ensuring that our broker distribution partners see Zurich is back in the market to support them,” he says.
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