Terryn appointed COO at Zurich from January

Christopher Munro

KRISTOF Terryn has been appointed chief operating officer for Zurich Financial Services Group’s (ZFSG) general insurance (GI) division. The newly created role, which Terryn will take up from January 1, will focus on managing the operational performance for GI, which will, according to Zurich, enable GI “to leverage its global scale for local customer delivery by building upon the technical excellence and moving towards truly global operations”. Currently the chief operating officer for Zurich’s global corporate division, Terryn joined the Swiss insurer from McKinsey’s Financial Institutions’ Practice in 2004. When he takes up the new role, Terryn will be based in Zurich itself where he will report to the chief executive for GI, John Amore. ZFSG has also announced that its life insurance arm is re-entering Taiwan four years after it last had a presence on the island. The insurer’s last Taiwan-based insurance business was sold to a local company in 2004, and the Swiss company believes that, despite the impact of the global economic downturn, the time is right to return. Andy Robinson, Asia head of Zurich International, said: “Taiwan has the secondmost high-net-worth individuals in Asia after China. We’re confident in the growth potential of the Taiwan market.” Zurich International Life has had an operation in Hong Kong for 20 years, with annual premium income of $500m, and an office in Singapore for the last three years.