Former Liberty Mutual exec joins Lemonade

Lemonade, a peer-to-peer insurer, has appointed John Peters as chief underwriting officer (CUO).

Peters joins from Liberty Mutual, having most recently served as executive vice president of commercial insurance operations.

While at Liberty, he has also held the position of chief underwriting officer and chief product officer.

Prior to this, he served as co-head of North American Underwriting practice at McKinsey & Company.

“Having a Chief Underwriting Officer as accomplished as John is a game changer” said Daniel Schreiber, CEO and co-founder of Lemonade.

“Lemonade has been rethinking the business models, behavioural sciences and technologies underpinning insurance - John has what it takes to bring this level of innovation to the core of insurance: underwriting.”

Based in Lemonade’s New York office, Peters will be working alongside Ty Sagalow, formerly president of product at AIG; James Hageman, formerly senior vice president of claims at ACE; and Ron Topping, formerly head of property/casualty financial planning and analyses at AIG.

Peters commented: “From an underwriting perspective, Lemonade has capabilities that have not been seen before. During its first 24 hours of operation, for example, Lemonade collected half a million data points from consumers. This opens underwriting possibilities that its 100-year-old-competitors simply don't have.”

“It’s not that incumbents don’t see change coming - it’s that overnight, their culture, business model and legacy systems turn from assets to handicaps.”