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Liberty Mutual Announces Organizational Changes, Leading to 370 US Job Losses

Liberty Mutual Insurance announced major organizational changes and executive leadership appointments, which are aimed at enhancing its personal and small commercial lines business in long-term strategic markets. Approximately 370 jobs will be lost in the US as a result of the restructuring.

Effective August 1, organizational changes and executive leadership appointments include:

• US Retail Markets (USRM) is a newly formed business unit that will deepen the company’s longstanding focus on personal and small commercial insurance lines in the US. The unit, which represents the sixth-largest personal auto insurer, the third-largest home insurer and the largest multi-line small commercial insurer in the US, with net written premiums of nearly $30 billion in 2022, will be led by Hamid Mirza, president, USRM. Mirza previously served as president, Global Retail Markets (GRM) US, and will report to Sweeney.

“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,” said a Liberty Mutual Insurance representative in an emailed statement. “Each impacted employee has been encouraged to apply for other positions within the organization or will receive severance and outplacement assistance.”

The new USRM business unit succeeds Global Retail Markets (GRM) which is discontinued following the planned divestments of that business in Latin America and Western Europe, the representative explained.

• 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. This alignment brings 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.

The remaining non-US GRM business, in Asia, will now align with the company’s other commercial and specialty business in that geography under the GRS business unit.

• Enterprise Transformation and Solutions is a newly formed enterprise function that 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 Sweeney.

In its quest to focus on core businesses, the company announced in June it was selling Madrid-based Liberty Seguros S.A., Liberty Mutual’s personal lines and small commercial insurance business, to Generali for €2.3 billion ($2.5 billion). The transaction includes Liberty Seguros’ operations in Ireland, Northern Ireland, Portugal and Spain. Liberty Mutual’s other European operations (Liberty Specialty Markets, Liberty Mutual Reinsurance, Liberty Mutual Surety, Liberty IT and Hughes Insurance) were not included in the transaction and are continuing to operate in their respective markets.

In May it announced it was selling select Liberty Mutual Insurance businesses in Brazil, Chile, Colombia, and Ecuador to the Talanx Group for approximately €1.38 billion (approximately US$1.48 billion).

“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,” said Tim Sweeney, Liberty Mutual Insurance president and chief executive officer in the reorganization announcement issued on July 13. “Ongoing optimization of our product portfolio and global footprint, coupled with investment in new, innovative capabilities will ensure we achieve sustained success.”