The designated CEO is the beacon of hope for Swiss Re, which is considered somewhat sedate. When he became head of the Corso business unit, there was a “year of pain” – but this was probably necessary.
Christian Mumenthaler’s departure as CEO of Swiss Re is not without irony. The 54-year-old held this position for years, although he was disappointed several times with the business figures presented. Mumenthaler has now delivered the announced net profit of $3 billion for 2023 – and has to go to July.
This is probably also due to the fact that Swiss Re has a successor in the starting blocks who has something to show for it: a track record. Andreas Berger, 58, has headed the Corporate Solutions (Corso) business unit at the reinsurer since March 2019 and was appointed Mumenthaler’s successor as CEO at the beginning of April. Corso was once a problem child and produced red numbers, but under Berger the unit has turned things around. With Corso, Swiss Re bundles its activities in the area of primary insurance for large customers.
This has made Berger a beacon of hope for the entire Swiss Re company: he is considered a man of speed. Many observers consider the reinsurer to be somewhat sedate and not profit-oriented enough. In the period from 2017 to 2022, Swiss Re often presented poor business figures. Analysts interpret the appointment of Berger as CEO to mean that the board of directors wants to prevent the group from slipping back into old waters after the good year of 2023.
Trend reversal at Corso
Berger came to Swiss Re in 2019 after positions at the consulting firm Boston Consulting Group and the insurers Gerling and Allianz. In the year before he took office, the business unit posted a net loss of $405 million with a combined ratio of 117.5 percent. If this value is 100 percent, the damage payments and costs of insurance are covered by your income. This is not the case with a rate above 100 percent; So things were pretty bad for Corso.
However, Berger managed to realign the division, make profits again and significantly improve the combined ratio. In 2023, under Berger, Corso generated profits of $678 million while posting a greatly improved combined ratio of 91.7 percent. The reasons for success are the disciplined assumption of risks, strict cost management and sustained price increases.
Visit from the boss
This would also make the entire Swiss Re group more efficient and profitable. Berger’s approach to Corso allows us to draw conclusions about how the designated CEO might act after taking office.
In order to put Corso on a better path, he first visited the corporate unit’s offices around the world and talked to the teams there “to understand how they work,” said Berger in a podcast interview from 2021. He then decided whether the units should continue as before or whether adjustments were necessary.
Just five months after taking up the management position at Corso, Berger announced the realignment of the unit. According to Swiss Re, claims reserves have been increased and risks in certain areas have been reduced. The business has become more focused and profitable. Berger himself speaks in the interview of a “very painful year 2019”. But he started early with his management team and they got things done quickly. Corso was then strong enough to survive the Covid crisis, he says in the podcast. As designated Swiss Re CEO, he is now planning another “listening tour”, as he has already announced.
Cultural change as a goal
After the announcement as the new Swiss Re boss at the beginning of April, Berger was portrayed in the media as a “warhorse” who would now clean up the reins at the reinsurer. This is probably due to the fact that he renovated and realigned Corso – and that this also cost some employees their jobs. Eventually, some divisions of the unit were closed. The Swiss Re press office reports that the number of employees at Corso is now higher than when Berger took office.
According to observers, a “Rambo image” does not do the 58-year-old justice. Rather, current and former Swiss Re employees paint the picture of him as a customer-oriented doer who brought about a cultural change at Corso and who acts quickly. He is a “people person” and a good communicator who can rally people in a company behind him and who attaches great importance to teamwork. He is also transparent and honest.
Berger himself says in the podcast that Corso wasn’t just about fixing what went wrong. For a trend reversal like Corso’s, you have to be “super-disciplined” in its implementation. You have to do what you think is right and not allow yourself to be distracted.
Roots in Kigali, Lisbon and Hennef
Berger has a very international CV. He was born in Kigali, Rwanda, to a Rwandan mother and a German father. His father worked as a technician for the German international broadcaster Deutsche Welle in various countries, but mainly in Rwanda. Andreas Berger also grew up in Portugal and Germany. He is married to a South African woman. They have a son who is studying at an English university.
Berger has university degrees in law and business administration. He didn’t see the insurance sector as an opportunity for a career for a long time, he said in an interview with the trade publication “Fullcover” in 2020. As a child, he perceived the insurers’ monumental buildings as “forts”. It felt as if the insurers had something to hide behind their thick walls.
Unusual path into the industry
In 1988 he came into the industry via an unusual path. At the time, he was studying business administration in Paris and one evening he talked to school friends in his German hometown of Hennef, near Bonn, about wanting to lead an international life. A week later he suddenly received a letter from the German insurer Allianz with an invitation. A parent of one of his school friends worked there and heard about the conversation.
He was offered a job as a project assistant at the insurer, which eventually took him to Senegal, Tunisia, Morocco and Côte d’Ivoire. During his career he later worked in Germany, Brazil, South Africa, Great Britain and Switzerland and held global responsibilities.
During his training and career, the insurance manager also experienced early on what change and uncertainty felt like. In 1972, Berger, who was born in 1966, said in the interview with “Fullcover” that he experienced the coup in Rwanda when the government at the time was overthrown. In Lisbon, as an eight-year-old, he witnessed the Carnation Revolution and the end of the dictatorship in Portugal when he attended a German international school there. In 1991, he was on the second-to-last plane that left Algeria when the civil war broke out between the government and various Islamist rebel groups. Because of his background and family connections, the 1994 genocide in Rwanda was a particular shock, even though he was not in the country at the time.
Natural disasters also pose uncertainty and risks. Globally, their impact on individuals, institutions and societies cannot be overlooked, says Berger in the interview with “Fullcover”. All too often, economic losses are not insured – and for Swiss Re it is about closing this gap and increasing resilience. This was also a reason for him to work for the reinsurer.