Global reinsurance giant Swiss Re has announced that Thierry Léger has been appointed to succeed Edi Schmid as Group Chief Underwriting Officer (CUO), effective September 1st, 2020.
Schmid has been the Group CUO and member of the Group Executive Committee since July 2017, and has decided to step down from the Executive Committee for personal reasons and assume an advisory role.
He first joined Swiss Re in 1991 and has since held numerous important roles, including as Head Property & Specialty Reinsurance, Head Property & Casualty Risks and Actuarial Management, and Chief Risk Officer Corporate Solutions.
Schmid’s replacement, Léger, has been leading the firm’s Life Capital Business Unit, which is comprised of Swiss Re’s ReAssure, elipsLife, and iptiQ businesses, since its establishment in January 2016.
He first joined the reinsurer as an underwriter in P&C in 1997, before moving to Swiss Re New Markets in 2001. Between 2003 – 2005 he served as a member of the executive team in France. Swiss Re notes that from 2006, he assumed increasing responsibility for the reinsurer’s larger clients, becoming Head of the Globals Division in 2010 and a member of the then existing Group Management Board. In 2013, he was appointed Head of Life & Health Products Reinsurance.
Swiss Re’s Chairman, Walter Kielholz, said: “On behalf of the Board of Directors I would like to thank Edi Schmid for his dedication and an enormous contribution to Swiss Re over nearly three decades. We are grateful that he will continue to share his expertise and knowledge with the Group in an advisory capacity.
“We are also pleased that Thierry Léger has accepted this new challenge after achieving many milestones during his time at the Life Capital Business Unit. His expertise in underwriting, technology, data and innovative solutions will be a big asset in furthering the development of Swiss Re’s leading position in underwriting.”
Additionally, Swiss Re has revealed that following the sale of its UK closed life book consolidator business, ReAssure, to Phoenix Group Holdings, the Life Capital Business Unit will be disbanded.
The sale is expected to close in the third-quarter of 2020 and Swiss Re states that the process surrounding the Life Capital Business Unit is expected to complete by the end of the year. Effective September 1st, 2020 the CEO of Life Capital will no longer be a member of the Group Executive Committee.
As a result of the disbandment of the business unit, Swiss Re notes that elipsLife is set to move to the reinsurer’s Corporate Solutions division at the end of September 2020, which will allow it to better leverage this business unit’s relationships with both corporates and brokers. Furthermore, iptiQ, which is Swiss Re’s white-labelling digital insurance platform, is set to become a standalone unit reporting to the Group CEO, effective January 1st, 2021.
Swiss Re’s Group CEO, Christian Mumenthaler, commented: “The changes announced today will position Swiss Re well for the next chapter of the Group’s strategic development. Having grown dynamically over the past years, iptiQ is on track to becoming a leading player in its field. And being part of Corporate Solutions will open further growth opportunities for elipsLife. In underwriting, we will continue to evolve our capabilities through cutting-edge research, access to more and better data and advanced analytics.”
