Drazen Jaksic: The ‘disruptor’ focusing on ‘continuous improvement and acceleration’ at Zurich UK

Running an insurance business with the scale and clout of insurer Zurich’s UK operations is no small feat, with 14 national offices situated across the country, manned by around 4,500 employees.

However, after a year-long stint leading Zurich’s Brussels-based Benelux region – which includes Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxembourg – from December 2023, chief executive Drazen Jaksic was rubbing his hands together to return to British soil and assume leadership of Zurich UK from former top boss Tim Bailey.

Speaking about his return to the UK, Jaksic tells Insurance Times: “I started my career in the UK. When I was growing up abroad, I always wanted to work in the city of London. I always had a huge affinity with it.

“Benelux was really an assignment, which ended up being shorter than planned. But for me, coming back to the UK, this was a natural step for my career. [The] UK is obviously the most exciting insurance market in the world, with some brilliant talent and innovation.”

Officially taking Zurich UK’s helm from January 2025, Jaksic is now celebrating his one-year anniversary of his current position.

He describes these first 12 months in the UK role as being “energising, rewarding and challenging”.

He expands: “As you start a new position – particularly when you’re able to shape such a large organisation – then, of course, it’s going to be very energising.

“I’ve met so many new people, so many new brokers, travelled around the country, [heard] so many great stories. So, from that perspective, it’s been really energising.

“It has also been very challenging as well. The commercial market has softened. Regional businesses have become more competitive and not to mention the geopolitics which affects us all.

“[My] biggest learning was related to the regional business. You realise how different requirements for service are for SME and mid-market [customers] in the regions – how much faster it needs to be, some of the challenges the brokers and customers are facing in the regions. For me, that was the biggest learning because it’s so different [to the] corporate market in London, for example.

“Then [the past 12 months have been] rewarding as well. We’ve made great strides this year in a number of things that we wanted to do. It’s gone in a blink of an eye.”

Better engaging the market

Jaksic identifies his biggest success of the past year as being the creation of Zurich UK’s ‘Make tomorrow today’ strategy – a market engagement focused plan that Jaksic first launched in March 2025 in alignment with the insurer’s annual road show visits to its regional offices.

Although distinct for the UK, the approach is reflective of the broader Zurich Group’s strategic priority areas too, which includes mid-market, SME, life, protection and specialty covers.

The ‘Make tomorrow today’ strategy was rolled out throughout 2025 and Jaksic says the programme will continue in 2026, with no predetermined end point or cyclical time frame. He explains: “I don’t have a set target over three or five years, [for example.] For me, this is a question of continuous improvement and continuous acceleration. We have still got work to do.”

For Jaksic, ‘Make tomorrow today’ has three key focal points – boosting market engagement, primarily via brokers, simplifying overcomplex operational processes and procedures that slow decision-making, as well as doubling down on Zurich UK’s existing strengths, which Jaksic feels lies in its service to regional SME and mid-market customers.

The driving force behind this programme of work is around six cross function employee task forces, consisting of up to seven employees each, that have been designed to “make changes with speed and agility across several business areas”.

This includes, for example, homing in on “anything from the way we engage across the market and our segments, all the way to frequency of trading, data updates and everything in between”, Jaksic explains.

Giving a more detailed example of how these task forces have been working in practice, Jaksic says: “In our claims team, particularly [in the] Glasgow claims centre, they looked at the opportunity to export the live chat service which we currently provide for our SME brokers and use it to inform our customers on the status of their claim.

“Within two weeks, we were able to make those changes. It wasn’t a complicated process, but the team did it very quickly and the impact was far more significant than they thought it would be.”

Jaksic acknowledges that although the ‘Make tomorrow today’ plan was not solely introduced in reaction to softening market conditions, the current insurance cycle was a consideration within the programme’s creation and approach.

He says: “There is always [a] benefit of coming up with a fresh perspective. In any business over a long period of time, processes get embedded. You develop [a] certain approach to market and then you follow whatever winning formula you believe you have.

“For me, it became clear very early that although we’ve been very successful [to date], to continue growing, it will require changing and adapting a strategy. What worked before may not drive future results. On top of that, the market has also changed over the last year as well.

“So, after spending some time listening to a lot of employees, brokers and customers, I initiated a programme to accelerate things, particularly things that have been doing well, simplify things which were too complex and focus on how we engage in the market. I’m a huge believer in market engagement.”

‘Unlocking talent’

Alongside the day job and implementing the ‘Make tomorrow today’ strategy, Jaksic tells Insurance Times that he has “a passion about developing talent” – Zurich UK has put its money where its mouth is here by being a sponsor of Insurance Times’ Destination Insurance talent campaign.

“I certainly valued the support I’ve had in my career, so I always look at how I can pay it forward,” Jaksic says.

“One of the things that I am personally committed to is unlocking talent within the organisation – particularly for those that are in the middle of their career progression, but due to location or structure or for whatever reason, their talent has not yet been recognised. We’re setting out how to help them show their potential and accelerate their successes.”

Jaksic notes that he has ensured that mid-level talent at Zurich UK has been able to participate in the ‘Make tomorrow today’ task forces and although the insurer already operates “various development programmes” for this demographic, he has plans around “launching a number of new things in 2026 as well”.

He continues: “Quite often, you don’t even know you have this talent [within the business]. So, it’s a question of how do you uncover it first and then help them really flourish?”

‘A disruptor by nature’

For Jaksic, 2026 involves adding a few new strings to Zurich UK’s bow.

This includes leaning into “innovation and technology” more – including artificial intelligence transformation – thanks to Asha Anil Kumar joining the firm in October 2025 as chief technology officer.

Furthermore, the UK insurer will support Zurich Group with the ongoing setup and establishment of its 2025 launched global specialty vertical, which is based in London.

“We have had a strong year in 2025, but the focus is just about how do [we] ride through the market cycle and how do we compete on service and things that we do really well, rather than just price,” he says.

“So, 2026 will be different and I think the trading landscape will be different as well. We expect even more competition, but then equally, we are ready for it. We’ll continue [to] focus on acceleration. That is critical.

“We’ll continue strengthening our relationship with brokers, both global and regional. And we’ll continue focusing on giving them world class service.”

This drive to do more and build on Zurich UK’s existing foundations is very much part of Jaksic’s leadership style, which he describes as “collaborative”.

He continues: “I’m a disruptor by nature. I like to challenge myself and everybody around me to think differently and I like to get people to extend beyond their comfort zones.

“What [this] does [is help push] us forward and help us work closer together and collaborate, then obviously build trust, [creating] opportunities for growth. I like my teams to feel empowered to deliver.”