A Q&A with our Managing Director, John Walters

A little about me

Can you tell us a little about your background and career journey so far?

I am originally from Ireland and, perhaps unsurprisingly, am an Actuary by trade. I started my career in the pensions consultancy space in Ireland, however I felt the itch to travel once I completed my actuarial exams. This is how my wife and I ended up in Australia in early 2012, where I was fortunate enough to get a role as a Pricing Actuary with HLR Aus. After four years, we made the difficult decision to move back to Ireland for personal reasons in 2016. Fortunately, I was able to stay within the Hannover Re Group, working in Financial and Structured Solutions business with Hannover Re Ireland. However, before too long, we began to miss the blue skies and sandy shores of Sydney, and so when the opportunity arose to move back to HLR Aus, we jumped at it! This ultimately led to me taking on the role of General Manager Group Business as well as an Executive team member in 2020, roles which I have enjoyed thoroughly to this day.

What attracted you to take on this new role at HLR Aus?

I have loved working for the Hannover Re Group these past 14 years. Regardless of where I worked or who I engaged with, the culture of trust and empowerment to deliver local solutions for local clients pervaded throughout. This trust and empowerment made it immensely satisfying to come to work every day, and I believe is the cornerstone of our value proposition for our clients. When presented with the opportunity to become one of the custodians of that culture and ensure its continued delivery through our empowered people here in Australia, it was impossible for me to pass that up. It will be my ongoing privilege to carry this forward for our people and clients alike.

What are some of your passions or interests outside of work?

I love to play golf when I get a chance, and I enjoy running, which helps clear my mind, but I would say my main passion is my family. My two children are still relatively young and, having been moved over and back across the globe and with no immediate family in Australia, our primary motivation is to ensure a stable and loving environment for them to grow up in. It’s the most important job there is!

What’s one leadership principle you live by?

If there’s one trait that has consistently served me well throughout my career, it’s curiosity. If I don’t understand something or if something doesn’t quite stack up for me, I will always pull at that thread until I have reached the point that it makes sense to me, and I understand the “why” behind it. This is particularly relevant when it comes to truly understanding our clients’ needs and motivations. I always encourage my people to adopt a curious mindset, and I hope that our clients will see this mindset deliver even more tailored services from HLR Aus going forward.

What are my vision and strategic goals for 2026

What are your top three strategic priorities for 2026?

As our partners have come to expect from HLR Aus, our strategic focus in 2026 will continue to be centred on working closely with our clients to support their strategic priorities and create long‑term opportunities together. To that end, three key priorities stand out.

• Our first priority is a commitment to support our clients and the industry in addressing unsustainable product designs, particularly in the TPD space.
• Our second priority would be to continue to support our clients with Longevity solutions in the retirement income space, which we have supported for many years locally, and I continue to believe is a fantastic opportunity for our industry to showcase its strengths to deliver more confident retirement for Australian retirees.
• Our third priority would be to enhance our focus on providing bespoke, capital-efficient reinsurance structures and support for our clients.

While these are my top three priorities, I remain fully committed to supporting all clients with the same level of attention and care.

How do you see our organisation evolving to meet future challenges?

We are constantly striving to ensure the continued relevance and suitability of both the products that we reinsure as well as the reinsurance structures that we provide to our clients. On the structure side of things, in the last couple of years we have been proactive in bringing new reinsurance structures to the Australian and New Zealand market, aimed at combining better capital efficiency for our clients with that all-important downside protection backed by the strength of the global Hannover Re Group balance sheet. This has been received well by our clients to date, and we will continue to invest in our capabilities and capacity in this space. On the product side, we have deep and dedicated product expertise within our team and look forward in using this expertise to support our clients in addressing the product challenges within the industry.

What role do innovation and technology play in your strategy?

We see both topics as strategic enablers to allow our clients to design and deliver their products in the way that the modern consumer expects. Together with our global Digital Business Accelerator team, based in London, we are continuously triaging, testing and piloting new global concepts with the intention of presenting them to our clients either on a bespoke basis or in forums such as our regular Innovation Summits. Intellectually, I find these concepts incredibly energising as we continually challenge the norms of our industry.

What does success look like for you and the company by the end of 2026?

From a HLR Aus perspective, success would be a year of continuing to efficiently and effectively support our clients and their policyholders, while being part of sustainable industry change from a disability insurance perspective. From a personal point of view, as a first-time CEO, I think success would definitely have to include still having my marriage intact!

From your initial conversations with clients, what is their greatest concern in the market, and how will we face them?

Growth and product design are the key themes that keep coming up as key concerns. For me, the two are interlinked. Imperfect product design has historically been one of the root drivers for many of this industry’s challenges from a regulatory and confidence perspective. We have seen positive green shoots from the painful but necessary changes to the IDII products. A continuation of that move to more sustainable product design across the market will imbue more confidence in all stakeholders in our industry, not least the policyholders who have had to deal with many years of significant premium rate increases and disruption. If we as an industry can deliver more confidence to the consumers of our products, I am convinced that this will inevitably lead to more growth.

A personal perspective

What’s one thing you’re most excited about in the year ahead?

That’s an easy one: the opportunity to take to new heights the great company that my predecessor, Gerd built up – working with our clients as well as all of our fantastic HLR Aus people.