Liberty Mutual to cut hundreds of US jobs in shift to ‘strategic markets’

Liberty Mutual Insurance is undertaking a major restructuring of its business in order to concentrate on “strategic markets”, with a particular focus on US personal and small commercial lines, as it looks to “improve profitability”. The move will result in the reduction of 370 US jobs across all functions.

As part of the initiative, the insurer has formed a new business unit, US Retail Markets (USRM), to deepen its focus on personal and small commercial insurance lines in the US. It will be led by Hamid Mirza as president. Mirza was previously president of Global Retail Markets (GRM) US.

USRM succeeds GRM, which has been discontinued following the planned divestments of the business in Latin America and Western Europe, the company said. The remaining non-US GRM business, in Asia, will now align with our other commercial and specialty business in that geography under the Global Risk Solutions business unit.

Asia Retail Markets, the company’s personal and small commercial insurance business in the region, will join Global Risk Solutions (GRS), Liberty Mutual’s global commercial and specialty division. The alignment aims to bring together the company’s personal, commercial, specialty lines and reinsurance operations in Asia to create a unified strategy and leverage scale. Phil Hobbs, president and managing director, Liberty Specialty Markets, will oversee the company’s international insurance footprint. Defne Turkes will continue in her role as president, Asia Retail Markets, reporting to Hobbs. Hobbs continues to report to Neeti Bhalla Johnson, president, GRS.

Another newly formed function will be Enterprise Transformation and Solutions, which will lead the company’s efforts to drive expense improvement and operational excellence, deliver efficient and effective solutions that unlock scale advantage, and elevate collective data and data science capabilities to drive better, faster differentiating insights and actions. The function will be led by Jim MacPhee, who has been named chief operating officer, Liberty Mutual. MacPhee previously served as president, GRM, and will continue to report to chief executive officer Tim Sweeney (pictured).

“As a result of this change, approximately 370 positions US-wide, which represents less than 1% of our global workforce, have been eliminated across all functions, many of which are effective by the end of September,” the company said in a statement. “Each impacted employee has been encouraged to apply for other positions within the organization or will receive severance and outplacement assistance.”

The organisational changes and executive leadership appointments will be effective from August 1.

Sweeney said: “As we continue to operate in a world of profound and accelerating change, we remain committed to keeping our promises and delivering exceptional value to our customers, agents, brokers and partners. Ongoing optimization of our product portfolio and global footprint, coupled with investment in new, innovative capabilities will ensure we achieve sustained success.”

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