Aviva hires former RSA director in chief underwriting role

Aviva has appointed Susan Penwarden as chief underwriting officer for commercial, corporate and speciality lines.

Penwarden has moved from RSA where she was most recently group specialty portfolio director.

She will report directly to Aviva’s UK and Ireland general insurance chief underwriting officer Axel Schmidt and will have overall accountability for underwriting results and product development in all commercial and corporate and speciality risk lines of business.

Schmidt said: “We are pleased to appoint someone of Susan’s calibre into this fundamentally important role.

“Susan joins Aviva at a very exciting time. In conjunction with the businesses, she will further drive our cycle management strategy across commercial and corporate and speciality businesses. The market continues to be highly competitive in terms of rates and reflecting the uncertain economic conditions our customers are operating in; that said, it is more important than ever that we continue to focus on disciplined and profitable underwriting.”

He added: “One of the challenges we face is to work together with our brokers and customers to ensure we deploy our capacity at the appropriate rates. Our aim is to bring long-term pricing stability that ultimately benefits our customers while ensuring we are able to continue to deploy our capital in a wide range of propositions.”