The UK arm of Swiss Re, one of the world's largest reinsurers, with its biggest UK base in London and further hubs in Manchester and Folkestone.
Swiss Re is a reinsurer: it provides insurance for insurers, so that a single big disaster does not sink the company that sold the original policy. Its UK operations, according to its UK careers page, span Reinsurance, Corporate Solutions (insurance for companies), iptiQ and Asset Management. The page gives the group's vision as to "make the world more resilient". An older Insurance Times profile said Swiss Re UK was established in 1969 and wrote property and liability business, including for Lloyd's entities.
The group itself was founded in Zurich on 19 December 1863. The reason goes back to a fire in the Swiss town of Glarus in 1861, which was so costly that local fire insurance funds could not cover it, and insurers then looked for protection against catastrophic losses. Swiss Re now has three main business units: Property and Casualty Reinsurance, Life and Health Reinsurance, and Corporate Solutions, and employs about 14,900 people in around 80 offices worldwide, according to Wikipedia's end of 2025 figure.
In the UK, the Swiss Re careers page describes three sites. London is the largest, and the hub for the three main business areas plus Asset Management and group operations such as communications, finance, HR and legal. Manchester is the UK Corporate Solutions hub, covering underwriting, sales, operations, claims and IT for property and casualty business with regional brokers. Folkestone, on the Kent coast, has more than 28 teams working in technical accounting, claims and finance, plus group IT. Swiss Re's London office is in the 30 St Mary Axe tower, the building known as the Gherkin, though it sold the building in 2007 and the careers page uses it as a base, not an ownership claim.
On culture, the UK careers page says the company is built on trust, fairness and belonging, and that inclusion is central to performance. It points to a flexible working programme called Own The Way You Work and says Swiss Re holds the National Equality Standard, a UK inclusion standard. Two employees on the page talk about being their authentic selves at work, and the UK team has produced an inclusive language guide. These are the company's own claims.
Roles on the page include risk underwriter in trade credit, pricing actuary, senior sales executive, senior property treaty underwriter and legal counsel in employment law advice. That is a good picture of how varied reinsurance work is: maths and data, law, sales, claims, accounting and technology all play a part. With sites in London, Manchester and Folkestone, the jobs are not all in the capital.
Website: www.swissre.com/careers/uk-careers.html
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