TAL hires Georgina Croft

The one-time customer services lead at BT Financial Group has landed at TAL Insurance as its new chief claims officer, effective 1 March.

Croft joins TAL having spent 13 years at Westpac, where she held several senior leadership roles, including operating chief of the bank's insurance division and business lead for insurance M&A transactions.

These included offloading the lender's general insurance, lenders' mortgage insurance, and life insurance businesses.

She was also chief of staff at Westpac's institutional banking business, reporting to the chief executive.

Before joining Westpac in 2010, Croft was a senior associate in Herbert Smith Freehills' corporate division.

The life insurer said Croft brings experience leading large operational teams and has had accountability for front-line customer service functions as well as broader experience across mergers and acquisitions, transformational change, risk and compliance, and corporate governance.

TAL group chief executive Brett Clark welcomed Croft to the life insurer.

"TAL remains focused on delivering industry-leading claims experience and claims outcomes for our customers and partners, supported by a committed investment program in technology and digital capabilities," he said.

"Georgina's extensive leadership experience and customer focus joined with TAL's continued investment in digital-first claims services and our people, will continue to make the end-to-end claims experience better, faster and simpler for our customers."

Croft added that she looked forward to working with the claims team to deliver even more for our customers and partners, to ensure that TAL leads in the industry in claims experience and claims outcomes, and that "all TAL customers feel confident we will be there to help if the unexpected happens."

Separately, AMP has appointed TAL as its new default and retail insurance provider for AMP Superannuation Fund members.