Zurich Australia employs 1,200 people across Australia and helps businesses manage their insurance needs. With a global presence and the ability to write insurance in 205 countries, Zurich has an extensive breadth of knowledge and experience to draw upon.
CEO General Insurance of Zurich Australia Daniel Fogarty has 25 years experience in financial services and has been a passionate player and advocate in the insurance game for 12 years. Daniel says his role at Zurich has been the culmination of years of experience dealing with customers and businesses across the Australian market.
My attraction to the insurance industry really comes down to two fundamental things, although theres a lot I like about the industry, Daniel explains. I enjoy dealing with people and building relationships, but I also like the intellectual challenge: its often difficult to get around the concepts of what were doing because insurance is complex.
The questions that Ive asked myself throughout my career have been, How can I best work together with people to get the right business outcome, and How do we deal with the difficult challenges that we have in our business? Insurance is one of the few products where you dont know how much its going to cost when youre selling it. Youre continually forecasting what you think the claims cost is going to be, based on previous information, but you put a premium out there and trust in the skills of your team.
Once youre dealing with the claims, it becomes a relationship environment and the moment of truth. Youre looking after customers who have sustained some negative impact to their business and consequently their livelihood and the livelihood of their employees. Its at times like this that you really see how important the claims relationship is. Its such an uplifting part of our business. We see the whole end to end: the event, the loss, and then the satisfaction of helping people to financially get back to where they were before. And because we are a commercial insurer helping a small business, we are often helping a community.