‘We’re primed and ready for growth’

Swiss Re Corporate Solutions’ local leader on his lofty ambitions, and making insurance ‘sexy’ for the next generation

By Bernice Han

In Kevin Bates, Swiss Re Corporate Solutions may well have found the best person to take its business here to the next level.

He joined last November and heads the insurer’s Australia and New Zealand unit, putting to use more than two decades’ experience managing the risk compliance and insurance teams at Lendlease, one of Australia’s largest property developers.

“What I bring to the role is the unique client insight, having made the move from the other side of the prism,” Mr Bates tells Insurance News.

“So, together with a very strong team of insurance professionals, this puts us in a really strong place … and brokers are really important [to us].”

Mr Bates took over from Christine Bell, who has retired after more than three years in the role. He had not considered leaving his old job, but Swiss Re Corporate Solutions’ name was a compelling reason to make the change.

“The company is laser-focused on strategy execution. I’m now running an insurance business surrounded by people who are in the insurance industry, and I’ve got the best leadership team around me,” he says.

Mr Bates is a lawyer by training, specialising in project and corporate finance. His career-change moment came while working on a deal for a client more than two decades ago.

He was in London, and he and a team including a broker were trying to structure the deal’s risk profile. That’s when he knew what he wanted to do for the rest of his professional life.

“Call it what you will. There was a light-bulb moment,” Mr Bates tells Insurance News. “My transition to insurance was completely intentional. Insurance touches everything and I quickly became a student of the industry. I knew what I wanted to do.”

Mr Bates also knows what he wants – and doesn’t want – for the business he runs. He has spent the past nine months familiarising himself with operations and his team, and meeting clients.

“I’m ambitious. I want to drive growth. I want us to continue to be regarded as the premier strategic partner in the market, [but] we are not all things to all  people and we’re not trying to be all things to all people. That’s not who we are,” Mr Bates says.

“We are specialised. We are focused. We are technical underwriters. We understand the client. We know what works.”

He says Swiss Re Corporate Solutions is “building something really quite impressive. It’s shaping corporate insurance. It’s very collaborative. It’s very energising and it’s an exciting place to be right now, make no mistake.”

Australia is a key market for the business – the commercial insurance arm of the Swiss Re Group. It has provided traditional and innovative risk transfer solutions to corporate clients here and in New Zealand for more than 14 years from its Sydney and Melbourne offices. Mr Bates says the Australian market is Swiss Re Corporate Solutions’ fifth largest worldwide.

Swiss Re Group does not provide an earnings breakdown for each business unit by market, but Corporate Solutions made a net income of $US829 million last year, up 26% on 2023.

Insurance revenue also improved, to $US8.1 billion from $US7.6 billion on “stringent portfolio steering” and disciplined underwriting.

In February, the business announced a new organisational structure, designed to serve corporates and brokers more closely at country level. It took effect on June 1, with the introduction of new market units for nine regions including Australia and New Zealand combined.

Mr Bates says the move underscores Australia and New Zealand’s importance to Swiss Re Corporate Solutions.

“The fact that we have our own market unit tells us that we are primed and ready for disproportionate growth,” he says.

Swiss Re Corporate Solutions is in a strong position to expand here because it offers risk expertise and products that few can match, according to Mr Bates.

Its ability to devise international programs and alternative risk transfer programs – parametric, captive offerings – are examples of its edge over others. “None of them can do it as well,” he says.

Commercial rates are easing after many years of sharp increases, but while some in the industry worry about the price cycle, Mr Bates is not among them.

“We are built with the tools to support sustainable growth irrespective of what the [market] cycle tells us,” he says. “If you look at what’s happening, there’s a strong argument that the rate is going down a tiny bit, but the way we look at it with our broker partners and our customers is points of difference.

“So things like risk engineering services, how can we help you identify and understand your risk better? We look at our retention rate, both in terms of the premium as well as the number of binds that we have … and we feel pretty happy. I’m not unhappy with where we are.”

However, one thing bothers him. “As an industry, we don’t do a good enough job of making insurance sexy, and that’s a problem as far as I’m concerned because insurance, in and of itself, is one of the key economic drivers that make the world turn.”

It’s not uncommon to hear industry executives say they “fell into insurance”, or “I didn’t choose insurance, insurance chose me”, and the industry needs to do something about it, Mr Bates says.

“We should be desperately proud of the profession that we’re in and what it does. If we can tell that story to the next generation coming through, then we have a really great opportunity to break the talent cycle, not lose them to investment banks and so on and so forth, and actually help them understand insurance can be sexy, and it’s very important.”

The insurance cycle: great ideas found on the road

Kevin Bates joined Lendlease in 2004 after six years practising as a solicitor in London.

In 2013, he moved from Singapore to Australia for a new posting with the Australian property developer, heading global risk management and insurance – a position he held until joining Swiss Re Corporate Solutions in November last year.

Mr Bates says he enjoys sports and, as a youth, swam for the Scottish under-18 team. Soccer is another great passion. “The soccer team from a little [Scottish] town called Arbroath … the team there still holds the world record for the highest scoring margin [36-0],” Mr Bates tells Insurance News with pride.

He doesn’t swim as much as before. These days, he cycles more, and “he often thinks about insurance” while out riding for five or six hours.

“You’re out there on your own and you’ve got a lot of time to think up some great ideas.”

One of Mr Bates’ mottoes in life is something he remembers from his father.

“He was a big believer in ‘act the way you do when no one is watching’, and his whole point is don’t put on a show just to try and be a gentleman or a nice person. You should always act that way.”