Beth Diamond | Age: 52 Group head of claims

Beazley PLC

New York

Beth Diamond wasn’t looking for a job in the insurance business, but when she got one, it didn’t take long to realize it was where she belonged.

Before joining Beazley PLC in 2006 as its first claims hire in the U.S., Ms. Diamond spent about 12 years litigating complex cases at a law firm in New York. “I was thinking about what I wanted to do next,” she recalled, assuming it would be a move to an investment bank.

As it turned out, the recruiter she was working with was retained by Beazley PLC to find someone to start its claims function in the U.S.

“I decided to take this leap of faith, do something that felt entrepreneurial and go with Beazley,” she said. “It’s an incredible industry” and a “wonderful thing to be a part of,” she said.

Now, nearly 16 years after opening Beazley’s New York office as a claims manager, Ms. Diamond leads a global claims team. She joined Beazley’s executive committee in 2020, when she assumed the role of group head of claims.

Ms. Diamond said Beazley’s flexible approach gave her the freedom to innovate. “A number of the things that I did in those early days are the ways that we work today,” she said.

Among those early innovations was her development of a now well-known cyber product. In the “early, early days of cyber,” she said, after educating herself on the legal aspects of the exposure and working with large companies on how to handle breach events, “we came up with what is now known as Beazley Breach Response, our premier cyber coverage product. It combines insurance coverage with services to help you through that crisis.”

Such innovation is not surprising to Theodore J. Kobus III, a partner at New York law firm Baker & Hostetler LLP. He has known her for around 15 years and the firm did work for her in a previous role at Beazley. “She is an extremely strategic and out-of-the-box thinker. She picks people who can find the most creative solutions, and I have always admired her for that,” he said.