Zurich North America creates new Specialties business unit

Zurich North America 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 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. 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.” – Zurich North America CEO Kristof Terry.