Watters takes over from Bobby Lehane, who was recently promoted to chief operating officer for the company's Asia-Pacific general insurance division. In his new role, Watters is expected to lead the business change and IT functions across Zurich Australia's general insurance, and life and investments units.

Prior to joining Zurich Australia in 2008, he served as head of fixed income, currency, and commodities technology at Citi, having worked as software development manager at CBA Global Markets before that.

His promotion comes at a time the firm is making a series of technological enhancements to its services. In late March 2011, Zurich Australia set up New Zealand headquarters at a new state-of-the-art building at the Auckland business centre. Shortly prior to that, the company launched a Mandarin-translated marketing platform to help expand its client base.