Axel Schmidt appointed chief underwriting officer

Aviva has appointed Axel Schmidt as chief underwriting officer for its UK general insurance business.

Schmidt will start his role in the new year when he will take on overall responsibility for the underwriting, pricing and development of commercial and personal lines products in the UK. He will be based in London and will report to chief executive Igal Mayer.

Schmidt joins Aviva from the Zurich Financial Services Group where he has worked for the past 20 years, most recently as technical underwriting director in their global corporate division. Having studied law in his native Germany he has worked around the world in Cologne, Rio de Janeiro and latterly Zurich.

Igal Mayer said: "Axel brings over two decades of underwriting knowledge to Aviva.

"His extensive commercial experience will help us to continue to build our core insurance capability, play to our full risk appetite and grow in our home market to maintain our number one position."