Mark Holweger

As one of the nation's strongest life insurers, LGA is ranked as number two for term life insurance providers in  the US. Our long history of serving families and our continued financial strength is our foundation.

The company is part of Legal & General Group Plc., which has been one of the world’s leading multinational financial services companies since 1836. Headquartered in London, the firm has over $1.7trn in total assets under management.

Four years ago, Mark Holweger moved to the US from Legal & General UK to become the President & CEO of Legal & General America. He has been at the forefront of the company’s digital transformation – a move that saw Legal & General America well prepared in terms of both services and operations when the pandemic hit in March 2020. 

It is hoped that increased digitisation and regulation changes in the US life insurance sector since the pandemic, will make life insurance protection far more readily and easily available to customers. It’s an area that Holweger, who spent many years in the UK life insurance sector, is passionate about.

“Insurance is about getting people back on track when things go terribly wrong. It’s about enabling them to carry on with their life,” he says, “and that’s what attracted me to it. I think we can make a real difference to society and help families.”

Because obtaining  life insurance cover in the US is generally a drawn out process, it can also be expensive. As a result, only certain demographics prioritise having cover – and generally, these customers are within high income brackets. This is an aspect that needs to change, Holweger says, because those that fall hardest when tragedy strikes are the vulnerable, low to middle earning families who simply either can’t afford cover, or have chosen not to take it out because it’s difficult to apply for - and it's expensive. 

Holweger says Legal & General America is focusing heavily on its digital platform, which works on agile principles, carrying out sprint releases every two weeks as part of the company’s strategy to allow for great flexibility and constant development. This ensures the platform stays up to date with the changing market trends. 

The underwriting process has also been reinvigorated through robotic process automation (RPA) to create better efficiency. This has enabled Legal & General America to keep their pricing competitive and therefore more accessible to customers. Low code is another aspect that has been transformational. 

“We don't have to have complex programmers doing all the work. By putting low code into our business we can have our people able to adapt the journeys and build the journeys as well. So we're leveraging lots of things at Legal & General America,” he says.

He adds, “Protection for this section of society needs to be more flexible,” says Holweger. “For me, life insurance is the life jacket, and how much life insurance you want depends if you just want a basic life jacket or you maybe need a safety boat. It's up to you, but it has to offer affordability as well.”

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