Liberty Mutual Reinsurance: stability 20 years in the making

Liberty Mutual Reinsurance (LM Re) is a very different business from the one that began 20 years ago, says Dieter Winkel (pictured), its president. He knows this well: he was there at the very beginning.

As the company prepares to mark its 20th anniversary this year, Winkel tells Intelligent Insurer how a unified corporate culture and a diversified book of business are vital to the delivery of stability for brokers and clients, year after year.

During the past two decades, LM Re’s journey has included significant growth and diversification. Along the way, the company weathered the enormous, market-shifting events that rocked the world of re/insurance. Winkel is proud that the business has continued to provide stability to its clients during this time, in spite of the challenges.

Now LM Re’s president, Winkel joined in 2002 from Gerling-Konzern Globale (now part of the Talanx Group), not long after market-changing events at the start of the millennium. The market was hard when he joined the “very small team” operating from a Lloyd’s syndicate platform. Over the intervening 20 years, LM Re has been “very active” in its successful expansion into different classes of business and regions, all the while navigating the familiar, very difficult re/insurance scenarios of the 21st century.

“We had large 2005 losses with hurricanes Katrina, Rita, and Wilma, then the financial crisis, the earthquake season in New Zealand and Japan in 2010/11, and hurricanes Harvey, Irma and Maria,” Winkel recalled.

“We’ve seen various crises since, from wildfires to war. Everyone inside and out of the business had to adjust and react constantly. It’s the business we’re in, and we keep doing it.”

Growth story

LM Re began by opening an office in Cologne with three people, added another office to cover different regions, opened a Paris office and added another account, and so on.

The result, Winkel said, was a series of “mini businesses” which operated with relative autonomy.

To navigate the various challenges the industry continued to face, however, Winkel saw the need to draw them together under a single strategy. His goal became the creation of a unified operation, fit to weather various storms—and also to exploit various cross-selling opportunities.

“Bringing the teams together was the most exciting journey,” Winkel said.

Part of the goal was to foster a cohesive LM Re culture across the organisation. “When facing challenges, nothing is more important than having all the right people united under a common culture which encourages the interactions and enthusiasm to tackle them,” he explained.

LM Re is international, with different cultures represented across its various teams, but Winkel is clear they have come together to ensure the business can offer clients the best possible outcomes. “We are team players,” he said. “We all have our eye on the same prize: creating stability for our business partners and clients.”

Winkel explained that LM Re will continue to develop and build out all its regions, classes, and strategies. “We’ve developed our strategy over time and we constantly adjust it to work through the unforeseen challenges which we and our clients continue to face.

“Who could have predicted that we would be where we are today, with climate-related challenges multiplying, and crises all over the world?” he said.

Winkel has steered LM Re relentlessly towards the construction of its diversified reinsurance portfolio, which he says is a necessity to ensure sustainability. He and his team at LM Re have worked hard to cultivate the portfolio, since only a sustainable reinsurer can serve its broker partners and clients well.

“Our world is difficult, but we sell security and stability, so we must be adept at mastering challenge to achieve stability,” he said.

“We work hard every day to achieve stability for our partners and clients. Our culture has served us very well in that goal, just as it has allowed us to deliver consistently for our clients,” he concluded.