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Direct Line's CEO was replaced.

The insur­ance group said yes­ter­day that Penny James had agreed with the board that she would leave

Crash

imme­di­ately and that Jon Green­wood, the chief com­mer­cial officer, would become act­ing chief exec­ut­ive. «It has been a priv­ilege to lead Dir­ect Line Group for nearly four years,» said James. Dir­ect Line’s chair Danuta Gray thanked James for her ser­vice since join­ing as chief fin­an­cial officer in 2017 and get­ting the top job two years later. A per­son close to James said the depar­ture was a mutual decision.

Gray said the board would work closely with the interim chief exec­ut­ive to focus on «our pri­or­it­ies of driv­ing our per­form­ance and restor­ing bal­ance sheet resi­li­ence, fol­low­ing the sig­ni­fic­ant head­winds the busi­ness faced in recent months». Dir­ect Line moved to strengthen its bal­ance sheet on Thursday with a rein­sur­ance deal that it said lif­ted its solvency ratio. Pres­sure has built on James as spiralling infla­tion in used car prices, and other costs pushed up the size of its pay­outs, for­cing Dir­ect Line to issue a profit warn­ing last July. In Novem­ber, it fur­ther revised its under­writ­ing profit guid­ance.

The insurer’s shares, which have fallen more than 40 per cent over the past year due to the profit warn­ings, slipped 2.8 per cent yes­ter­day. James is the second chief exec­ut­ive in the sec­tor to step down in two days. He has been replaced by Thi­erry Léger, former chief under­writ­ing officer at rival Swiss Re.

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  1. Malcolm28 January 2023 at 12:26

    Penny James should have probably left a while back and someone new was and is needed to steer this ship in a new direction. She also had bad luck to be CEO in these hard times. Will be curious to see if Jon Greenwood will do better. It's not going to be easy.

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