Tobias Cushing named Deputy Chief Underwriting Officer at Zurich NA

Tobias “Toby” Cushing, previously Casualty Technical Director at Zurich North America, has been appointed to the newly created role of Deputy Chief Underwriting Officer, effective March 24.

Reporting directly to Chief Underwriting Officer Heather Fox, Cushing will be responsible for supporting profitable growth through the delivery of data-driven insights and enhancement of technical capabilities for Zurich North America’s underwriters across all lines of business, including Property, Casualty, Specialty Lines, Excess and Surplus and Crop insurance.

Delivering actionable insights

“With Toby’s exceptional breadth of expertise, we know this role will allow Zurich to realize synergies across all of our lines of business,” Fox said. “The goal is to strengthen innovation and provide even more valuable resources to empower our underwriters to deliver actionable insights and solutions to our customers and brokers.”

The Chief Underwriter’s Office is adding another new role, Head of Innovation, to help identify and advance adoption of telematics and other Internet of Things (IoT) tools, such as water sensors in customer properties, to support mitigation of leading loss drivers. The person in this role will report to Cushing.

Cushing, who is based out of Zurich’s New York City office, joined Zurich as Head of Construction Casualty in 2022. He has since held several underwriting leadership roles of increasing responsibility. Prior to joining, Cushing held a variety of roles at The Hartford, including serving as Head of Construction for Middle and Large Commercial. Earlier in his career he practiced law as an insurance coverage litigator and advisor for complex insurance transactions.

His initial move from Zurich Construction into the Chief Underwriter’s Office in 2023 grew out of his desire to dig into the root causes of some of the most disturbing loss trends for businesses – and to help reverse them. He started by focusing on Auto, where loss frequency and severity have climbed across the insurance industry.

Key fact patterns in Auto losses

“Our work in Auto started with identifying what’s causing deaths and catastrophic injuries,” he said. “As we looked deeper, we saw evidence of a shift in driving behaviors and dynamics, especially in certain states after the pandemic. We found four common fact patterns that drove the most severe losses, and we incorporated our findings into helping policyholders and supporting risk selection.”

His team and a group of colleagues from Claims, Risk Engineering and Actuary looked at operations that seemed to avoid or manage the recurring fact patterns that led to catastrophic accidents, to inform fleet and driver safety. This helped to identify evolving, effective risk management practices and tools to share with customers.

“We look at how we can help ensure our underwriting approach recognizes those companies that are upholding a high operational safety standard, which is key,” Cushing said. “Businesses need risk transfer; they count on us for covered losses. That’s a big part of what we’re here for. But if we can help predict and prevent the losses, that is where we provide the most value. We want to provide services and coverages that are better than what our customers can find elsewhere.”