Thielen: Liberty Mutual has cyber growth ambitions but will put profitability first

By James Thaler

May 27 - (The Insurer) - Liberty Mutual has ambitions to build upon its top 15 position in the cyber market, with the company's incumbent position across P&C classes and account sizes meaning it can compete effectively, but underwriting profitability remains paramount, Patrick Thielen has told The Insurer TV.

Speaking during this month’s RIMS Riskworld event in Chicago, Liberty Mutual global cyber head Thielen touted the recent arrival of Travelers executive Tim Francis and outlined ambitions to grow in the small, middle and large account segments.

“We're a top 15 writer of cyber insurance, and we certainly have growth ambitions,” Thielen said in the interview.

“We're never going to put growth ambitions ahead of profit ambitions or just doing right by our policy holder,” he continued.

“But we believe that now through 2030 we're going to grow significantly, and we're going to do that by taking the best parts of our various practices from around the globe,” he added, highlighting Liberty’s existing primary and excess positions across account sizes.

“What we're doing is taking all of those capabilities and ensuring that we lean into what we've always done well, while rounding that out with an even stronger value proposition across the globe,” Thielen said.

He said that Liberty is writing more primary business than ever, with coverages being augmented with additional services and that the carrier is going deeper into the middle and SME markets after historically weighting its portfolio to large enterprise clients.

Cyber Risk Insurer was the first to report late last month that Liberty has hired longtime Travelers enterprise cyber lead Francis as its new North America cyber head, whom Thielen said he had known personally for close to 20 years.

“He's a great leader, and he's going to be a big addition to our already strong team and make it even stronger,” Thielen commented.

“We've hired a really impressive team of risk engineers. They all have a unique background to them, but they're all high caliber (information security) professionals,” he noted, saying that some have military and CISO backgrounds, and include prominent cybersecurity researchers.

“When it comes to cyber risk, there is no one person that is an expert in all aspects of the risk,” he added.

“So, constructing a team of professionals that have different backgrounds, skills and perspectives and the ability to take tools, put them together and build machinery that essentially creates really crisp insights and high-resolution insights into what the risk is,” Thielen said.

“So that not only can we underwrite it, price it, risk select well, but also parlay those insights into value for our policyholders,” he commented.

Despite softening conditions, Thielen said that Liberty is taking a long-term view to the market, with the expectation that demand for cyber insurance and mitigation services will only continue to grow.

“In the current state of the market, it's certainly very competitive. The rate environment still, depending on the geography, arguably, may not be keeping pace with loss trends,” he said.

“And so, in the short term, paying close attention to some of those micro pockets of different industries perform differently in different geographies, different risks apply to different firms,” he added.

“We try not to paint the market with too broad a brush, but rather take micro, refined strategies within those sub-segments of the market,” Thielen said.

The executive was also asked about Liberty’s interest in writing cyber on a delegate authority business, to which he responded that the insurer is “very focused on adding value.”

“So, whether that's ourselves adding value to our policyholders with insights or capabilities, whether that's partnering with an MGA on a delegated relationship where they're adding value to us or our clients, or we're adding value to the program,” he commented.

“Those are the types of partnerships that we're most interested in,” Thielen concluded.

Watch the full interview with Liberty Mutual’s Patrick Thielen to hear more on:

• Liberty’s growth ambitions in the small, mid-market and large account segments

• Cyber talent Liberty has recruited into the firm, including from InfoSec and researchers

• “Multi-faceted” approaches being taken by threat actors and better incident response

• How defenders are increasingly leveraging AI to both prevent and respond to breaches

• The thinking behind Liberty’s approach to writing cyber on a delegated authority basis

• And more…