ZURICH FRANCE: driving change in insurance risk resilience

Transforming legacy systems is an ongoing journey for Zurich France, as it tackles new risk and resilience solutions

In 2022, Zurich Insurance Group announced a business operating profit of US$6.5bn, a target above the expectations of previous years. The success has been evenly distributed across the group, but the P&C line – which is the main line for Zurich France – has performed particularly well, with a 94.3% combined ratio alongside a rise in business operating profit, too.

Growth in customers and P&C lines for Zurich France

But the growth hasn’t just been about the numbers and profit. Rather, Zurich France has enjoyed a fruitful 12 months in terms of new customer onboarding, and the development of fresh products and solutions.

One particular unit that has grown the most over recent years is Zurich Resilience Solutions, or ZRS, created to address the rapidly changing risk landscape with a holistic approach to supporting risk management and helping build resilience.

It is this area of risk and resilience that has preoccupied the strategies taken by Zurich France over the past few years.

Describing the journey, Denis Stasinski, Chief Underwriting Officer, explains that there are two clearly defined periods that mark eras of change within Zurich France: “As a starting point, we have the world before and after COVID-19. The global economy has experienced an accelerating transformation

– and this is true across geopolitical, societal, economic, and digital spheres.

“Additionally, we are starting to see the impact of climate change in both the frequency and intensity (or severity) of

CAT events. To date, global warming is obviously a concern that we have to address collectively. As an insurance company, we need to analyse and adapt our approach considering those evolutions, which impact the risk landscape we have to deal with.”

Denis Stasinski says that by focusing on digital transformation and the latest technologies, Zurich – which is a global company serving 210 countries and territories – is having greater success in delivering its solutions as well as monitoring risk and resilience.

Forging solid partnerships has been a fundamental part of Zurich’s success in its transformation journey. Currently partnered

Denis Stasinski

TITLE: CUO

COMPANY: ZURICH FRANCE with Roboyo, a collaboration of primary importance, Mathieu Pauwels, COO of Zurich France, says that Roboyo’s position as an industry leader has played a critical role.

An engineer by training, Denis holds a DEA in Materials Science from the Ecole Nationale Supérieure de Chimie et de Physique de Bordeaux, as well as a master’s degree in Risk Management from the Institut de Management des Risques. He began his career in 1993 at AXA-XL as a prevention engineer and then as a senior property underwriter. He continued his career in the Civil Liability department as a senior underwriter before being promoted to Claims Manager.

In 2009, he joined RSA and took responsibility for all "1st party" underwriting lines.

“Roboyo is the leading pure player in the Intelligent Automation industry. It has been growing very fast over the last three to four years. Roboyo has helped Zurich Group to build and scale the Robotic practice in 2018 and 2019. Since then, Roboyo has been one of the preferred partners for all the topics around automation.”

He explains: “They are now helping Zurich France to bring automation to our business. Their key value for us is to be a real pure player in intelligent automation (across

Executive Bio

In December 2017, he joined Zurich France as Director of Underwriting for Property, Construction & Technical Risks Underwriting. In September 2019, he was promoted to Head of Underwriting for Zurich France.