Zurich North America creates new Specialties business unit

SCHAUMBURG, Illinois – Zurich North America (Zurich), a market leader in commercial insurance solutions, today announced the formation of a Specialties business unit encompassing its Construction, Surety and Financial Lines businesses. Kelly Kinzer, previously Head of Construction, will lead the new unit. In addition, Zurich is bringing together a Customer and Distribution Management (CDM) function. John Diaz, previously Head of U.S. Middle Market Underwriting, will lead CDM. Both Kinzer and Diaz will report directly to Zurich North America CEO Kristof Terryn, joining the Zurich North America Executive Committee and the Group Leadership Team. These changes are effective immediately.

These structural changes align with Zurich Insurance’s new three-year business plan, shared at Zurich Investor Day 2024 in London in November.

“These adjustments to our structure will position us to seize more opportunities for growth, simplification and innovation in North America, building on our strong results over the past three years,” Zurich North America CEO Kristof Terryn said. “Kelly is the right person to lead the new Specialties unit, as she has successfully presided over strong growth in our market-leading Construction business over the past three-plus years.

Similarly, John is a natural choice to lead the unified CDM function, as his work in Middle Market and National Accounts in recent years has focused extensively on bringing us closer to our distributors and customers in key markets and streamlining how we operate and deliver for them. The overarching goal with these changes is to best position us to understand, anticipate and act quickly to address our customers’ and brokers’ needs in a time of rapid change.”

Specialties leadership and overview

Kinzer brings extensive leadership experience and impact to her new role as Head of Specialties. Kinzer started her career at Zurich in the Construction Underwriting Training Program. She later worked in various roles at Allianz Global Corporate & Specialty and Marsh & McLennan, where she was Senior Vice President. She also spent four years at Willis Towers Watson, where she progressed to Executive Vice President and Head of Construction Broking for North America. She rejoined Zurich in 2019, serving as Head of Construction Property and Head of Construction Casualty before her promotion to Head of Zurich Construction in 2022. She was named a Business Insurance Woman to Watch the same year.

Within Specialties, Nora Hattauer will continue to lead Financial Lines and Chris Nolan will continue to lead Surety, both reporting to Kinzer.

Related business adjustments

Head of Captives Dawn Hiestand and her team will move into U.S. Middle Market from U.S. National Accounts. Hiestand will report to Head of U.S. Middle Market Alex Wells.

CDM leadership and overview

Zurich has taken steps to strengthen its U.S. distribution footprint in key geographies over the past year. Unifying CDM colleagues, with Diaz as leader, is the next step to optimize the organizational structure.

Before his most recent role as Head of Underwriting for U.S. Middle Market, Diaz served as Chief Operating Officer for U.S. Middle Market, where he has played a critical leadership role in aligning core underwriting, sales and services to strengthen market relationships. He previously held roles in National Accounts, including as Regional Vice President for Large Casualty and Head of Business Performance Management & Execution. He started in Distribution & Strategy when he joined Zurich 16 years ago from AIG, where he held leadership positions in operations, finance and distribution.

About Zurich North America

Media contact: Wendy Donahue, wendy.donahue@zurichna.com