(Bloomberg) -- Zurich Insurance Group AG is “prepared to shrink” some of its businesses after being caught off guard by the scale of claims it had to absorb last year, according to Cecilia Reyes, the company’s chief risk officer.
"We were surprised, obviously, by the poor underwriting results in the general insurance business,” she said in an interview at the company’s headquarters in Zurich. “We need to either re-price or, if we cannot get the right level of compensation to the risk, we should walk away from some risks.”
Reyes switched to chief risk officer from chief investment officer in July, shortly before unusually high claims pushed the company’s general insurance unit to a third-quarter loss of $183 million and prompted it to drop a bid for Britain’s RSA Insurance Group Plc. Zurich is bringing back Mario Greco, who oversaw general insurance before he left in 2012, this time as chief executive officer starting in May to replace Martin Senn who stepped down in December.
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