Zurich won’t be tempted by hard market to stray from de-risking path

Zurich Insurance Group will not be tempted to stray from its path of de-risking away from long-tail liability and property cat by the specific allures of the latest phase of the hardening market, officials have vowed.

“At the margins, we can push it one way or the other, but we won’t transform it,” chief financial officer (CFO) George Quinn said of property and casualty (P&C) positioning. “You end up trying to chase something all the time and I don’t think you’re guaranteed to get what you want.”

A multi-year plan to cut longer-tail liability lines while increasing specialty and property – but not property cat – remains fully in force. Zurich had likewise felt overweight in volatile large corporate and needing balance from middle-market.

“I think we view it as strategic,” Quinn said, “rather than a short-term view of the particular trends that affect various components.”

The shape of the current market hardening has made the longer-tail lines “more attractive than they’ve been for some time,” Quinn admited, “but I don’t think that changes the fundamental risks that surround them.”

The hardening of rates for natural catastrophe not only doesn’t tempt Zurich away from its paring of property cat risks, it can actually grease the process, Quinn said.

“A hardening market for nat cat makes this kind of thing easier to do, not harder,” Quinn argued for analysts.

“Market conditions are actually quite helpful at the moment,” Quinn said. Zurich is currently ahead of schedule and proceeding without “substantial resistance or risk of losing the part of the book we do wish to rate.”

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