CEOs to Watch: Edmund F. Kelly

Under the direction of Edmund F. Kelly, Liberty Mutual has been a carrier on the move. Within the past year, the P&C insurer has enlarged its independent agent-based business through the May 2007 acquisition of Ohio Casualty (Fairfield, Ohio) and the pending acquisition of Seattle-based Safeco. Both acquisitions will fall under the umbrella of Liberty Mutual's Agency Markets division.

With the addition of Safeco, Boston-based Liberty Mutual will jump a rung on the P&C premium rankings, going from the sixth- to the fifth-largest P&C carrier in the United States. The combined organization accounts for annual direct premium of $26.2 billion (2007).

Kelly is reputed by people close to him to be one of the most technologically aggressive CEOs in the industry, and Liberty Mutual enterprise CIO Stuart McGuigan has characterized Kelly's work as taking place within an industry context of a "technological arms race." Kelly has further girded his company for that battle by appointing a new Agency Markets CIO, James McGlennon, to guide the rapidly expanding business unit's technology organization.

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Anthony O'Donnell has covered technology in the insurance industry since 2000, when he joined the editorial staff of Insurance & Technology. As an editor and reporter for I&T and the InformationWeek Financial Services of TechWeb he has written on all areas of information ... View Full Bio