Zurich North America invests in U.S. Middle Market expansion

A leading commercial insurance provider, Zurich North America is expanding its U.S. Middle Market business to serve additional geographies across the United States, building on four consecutive years of double-digit growth in its core property and casualty (P&C) book of Middle Market business. With hiring already in progress, the additional investment includes plans to add more than 100 underwriting roles focused on the midsize segment across the country.

“Middle market businesses are a growing force in the U.S. economy, and they aren’t concentrated in just a handful of the largest cities. We want to meet these businesses and their brokers where they are,” said Alex Wells, Head of U.S. Middle Market for Zurich North America. “Our Middle Market business formed as a distinct unit at Zurich five years ago, and the success we’ve had since then validates three of our driving principles – being as close to our customers and brokers as possible, offering them industry-specialized insights from underwriters and risk engineers who know and understand their businesses, and fulfilling their needs holistically through Zurich’s wide range of offerings, global capabilities and 153 years of financial strength. Investing in this next expansion is the latest way we’re executing on our principles. We take pride in helping midsize businesses protect their people and assets as they build on their own momentum and act on opportunities.”

What Zurich USMM offers

Zurich’s U.S. Middle Market business (USMM) goes to market by industry vertical, providing a range of Property, Casualty, Financial Lines and Specialties coverages tailored to industry-specific needs of midsize businesses. Solutions include insurance and risk engineering services for businesses in construction, technology, manufacturing, life sciences, financial and professional services, and other sectors.

Zurich’s USMM business is looking to hire or place underwriters in all regions, including the South, the West, the Midwest and the East.

“In a time of rapid team growth, we want to ensure our new joiners are set up for success,” said John Mizzi, Chief Operating Officer for U.S. Middle Market at Zurich. “We recently created a new role, Head of Onboarding & Development, to provide comprehensive training and a supportive environment. We also are creating cohorts of new joiners who start at the same time so they have a strong internal network from Day One. All of us, when taking on a new challenge, want to rapidly achieve belonging, confidence and empowerment to do the job we were hired to do. And then we want to continue to have opportunities for continuous learning and career growth. That’s the culture we want to be known for in Zurich Middle Market.”

Support for new joiners

Lisa Diers, who has been with Zurich for 28 years, has been selected as Head of Onboarding & Development for Middle Market and will draw on various leadership experiences in technical underwriting, field underwriting management, referral underwriting, and product and system development. She previously was Middle Market Head of Underwriting Quality and Compliance. She recently led enhancements to the USMM Underwriter Trainee Program (UTP), including creating a pathway for advancement from Underwriting Associate to Underwriter. She holds a bachelor’s degree in human development and social policy from Northwestern University.

Zurich North America set up a distinct U.S. Middle Market business unit in 2020 with a mission to make Zurich an industry leader in the space. Zurich Middle Market has since brought in-demand solutions designed to simplify risk management for customers and distributors, including an admitted Primary Products Liability Policy for life sciences companies and My Zurich Broker Concierge, which provides brokers on-demand access to loss runs and transaction status, with or without application programming interface (API) integration. Zurich Middle Market also has implemented Smart Renewals, which enable many accounts to be fast-tracked for renewal without a full re-underwriting process.

Zurich Resilience Solutions, which provides a range of risk engineering and business resilience solutions, also is adding risk engineer positions to support Middle Market businesses, which often do not have extensive in-house risk management teams.

Brokers who want to learn more about Zurich USMM can visit Helping you meet tomorrow prepared.

Learn more about Insurance careers at Zurich.

About Zurich North America