SiriusPoint’s EVP and chief information & technology officer, Nestor Lopez (pictured), has turned a post‑merger tangle of legacy systems into a disciplined, data‑driven change programme. In this interview with Insurance Business, he explains why bordereaux management modernisation, an enterprise data hub and carefully governed AI are central to profitable growth, and why he still finds time for piano practice and the World Baseball Classic.
When Lopez graduated from the University of Puerto Rico, his first step was not into insurance but into General Electric’s technology leadership program. There, he developed what he describes as a “significant passion for process improvement and developing solutions using technology.”
That early grounding in structured change laid the foundation for a career that would ultimately take him into some of the sector’s most complex technology environments. Lopez “found himself in insurance, as many say,” working at Allianz’s Fireman’s Fund and later at CNA, before becoming CIO at ProSight Specialty Insurance, his first experience in the top technology seat. At ProSight, he led core system implementations, a migration to the cloud, and improvements in cyber practices to support the business ambition, work he recalls as “a very rewarding opportunity” because it allowed him to “drive significant change at the company-wide level.”
SiriusPoint came on to his radar when it was in “the middle of a big transformation” following the merger of two reinsurance businesses. The prospect of applying his experience to “drive strategic change at a global level” appealed to him and he took a group-wide, global role at the company four years ago where he is now Executive Vice President and Chief Information and Technology Officer.
Lopez is clear that at SiriusPoint, digital transformation is not an abstract slogan, but a specific change in how the business operates.
“Digital transformation for us has meant shifting from fragmented processes to a unified, tech supported, data driven operating model for our partners,” he says. The practical emphasis has been on “making it easier to do business with us” through faster onboarding, better‑quality data, automated bordereaux ingestion and “more transparent oversight.”
On the underwriting side, the transformation is aimed at stripping out friction from day‑to‑day work. The team is “focusing on simplifying the workflows, improving their quality at the source, and giving teams the tools to make more informed and timely decisions without navigating multiple legacy systems.”
For Lopez, this is not just a technology agenda but a business one. Shortly after CEO Scott Egan arrived, the company shifted from stabilising a complex merger to “driving an underwriting first vision and delivering profitable growth,” at which point SiriusPoint “made a decision to start investing our profits, in people, processes and technology.” Over the past couple of years, he says, the focus has been “very heavily on our digital transformation.”
Lopez joined a business still carrying the technical baggage of a corporate combination. “Because we were a merger of two (re)insurance companies, there was a lot of overlap in technology,” he notes. The initial priority was straightforward but demanding: “standardisation,” “consolidation,” “simplification,” and “most importantly, to move to the cloud.”
Only after that first wave of rationalisation did SiriusPoint fully pivot into a more expansive change programme, investing in what Lopez calls the “change journey”, a term he prefers to the more fashionable “digital transformation.”
Asked what specific problems the transformation is designed to tackle, Lopez does not hesitate: “Our focus has been on accessibility of data and driving operational excellence.” Delegated authority and bordereaux management quickly emerged as priority areas.
“What we found was that our delegated authority and bordereaux management needed modernisation to reduce some of the operational burden and improve program oversight through better data,” he explains. At the same time, the company has been “strengthening our controls and governance framework” to underpin “a resilient, data-driven organisation,” independent of external pressure.
Regulation has reinforced the direction of travel. Lopez cites DORA and the UK’s operational resilience regime but insists “our commitment of these improvements exists, irrespective of the external mandates.” The next phase is to “build on the operating models that we have established and deliver more robust technology for our claims and ceded reinsurance teams,” while accelerating programme data into SiriusPoint’s “Insurance Technology Infrastructure foundation.”
Lopez highlights a small number of “flagship” initiatives that, in his view, are moving the needle.
The first is the modernisation of bordereaux ingestion for programme and delegated authority partners. This is intended to “materially improve interactions with our partners and oversight of our global program business.”
The second is the firm’s enterprise‑scale data backbone. SiriusPoint has built what Lopez calls the EDH, an Enterprise Data Hub, designed to centralise core information and establish a “robust consumption layer.” The aim is to make data “more accessible” and to create “the single source of truth for underwriting, claims, and finance, for both analysis and reporting.”
Alongside these foundational projects, Lopez is investing in tools for specialised teams. For life reinsurance, SiriusPoint launched PricePoint, a self-service web-based pricing tool for group term life business. While in marine, it has implemented a tool for “exposure management of our marine vessel location exposure data globally.” He says these solutions “will enable our teams to perform the roles more effectively,” and the IT group is “working with teams very closely” to deepen integrations over time and “drive scale.”
Behind these projects sits a disciplined governance structure. SiriusPoint has “established a change program, with support and leadership from our CEO and members of the Executive Leadership Team” to prioritise initiatives. The programme focuses on work that “directly supports underwriting performance, operational excellence, data quality, regulatory compliance, and operational risk reduction.”
The bar for inclusion is high: “We have selected those initiatives where we must demonstrate clear strategic enablement and measurable impact,” Lopez says. The company emphasises projects that “simplify the enterprise, reduce long-term complexity, and improve the experience for our people, so that they can focus on our partners and our customers.”
To ensure execution, SiriusPoint has also “established a transformation office and a steering committee” to oversee delivery and change management, making sure that initiatives are “fully aligned with our culture.”
For all the engineering ambition, Lopez is candid about the realities of legacy clean‑up and behavioural change.
He points first to “the level of hidden complexity in legacy processes.” Once modernisation starts, “you tend to uncover more variations and manual workarounds.” The second challenge has been “the importance of the cultural shift required to make the new technologies actually stick.” In his view, “technology alone, sometimes, is the easier part. Aligning behaviours, roles, and governance requires more time and attention.”
To bring people with him, Lopez has emphasised communication. SiriusPoint is “focusing on improving communication with employees, making sure that we are clearly and frequently sharing where we are, the progress that we're making, what is changing, what is not changing yet, and the impact and benefits for our stakeholders, so that we can manage expectations.” In any given year, he notes, you “identify more than you can deliver, which makes prioritisation and expectation management critical.”
From a personal standpoint, perhaps the hardest part has been “pacing the organisation through the change and, balancing ambition with the capacity of the teams.” As Lopez says, you need “early alignment around business outcomes, data ownership, process, operating model shifts, so that the transformation efforts build momentum more quickly and consistently.”
SiriusPoint has combined structural adjustments with broad‑based upskilling. Within IT, Lopez says, “we strengthened our cloud and cyber security foundations. That was critical, and we emphasised a product-led delivery, and we also invested in increasing capacity and capabilities to drive business-led change.”
Across the wider organisation, the focus is on “upskilling with AI literacy,” modern engineering practices and robust change management to “make sure that we drive adoption.” The ambition is for teams to “adopt these tools with confidence.”
On incentives, Lopez is clear that teamwork and collaboration is prioritised over siloed behaviour. “We try to reinforce change, adoption and also cross-functional collaboration rather than silo delivery,” he says. “If you want to deliver effective change, you have to work in collaboration. It’s not by chance that collaboration is one of SiriusPoint’s core business values.”
One recurring concern across the industry is whether automation and AI will displace people. Lopez argues that context is crucial.
“Something that I believe we have done very well is to ensure that people understand we are a growing company,” he says. “What we're looking for is scale and what we're trying to do is to make sure we're providing technologies to enable us to scale without adding unnecessary costs to the organisation.”
While he “understands that those fears sometimes can be real,” he believes many colleagues are now “wholeheartedly embracing technology, including AI.”
The balancing act, he says, is to “start building momentum by empowering the business with AI to accelerate value creation while delivering on the strategic priorities and the risk, strategic uncertainty.” That balance “comes from discipline, governance. Innovation must connect back to real business value, not just being a novelty.”
Asked to look three to five years ahead, Lopez sees the convergence of data, AI and cloud as decisive.
He forecasts “AI assisted underwriting, automatic claims assessment, adjudication, real-time risk intelligence” that will “redefine productivity and selection.” In his view, “the combination of AI, high quality data and modern cloud architecture will fundamentally change how insurers price, operate and engage with their partners and customers.”
Not all carriers will benefit equally. Lopez believes those that strengthen “the data foundations” and embrace “AI responsibly” will enjoy “a significant competitive advantage.”
For all the talk of architecture and operating models, Lopez is careful to maintain a life outside the office. A few years ago, he decided to learn the piano when both his daughters began lessons. “We are a little bit of a competitive family,” he laughs, and they started taking classes together. His oldest is “definitely much better,” and the younger is “already surpassing me,” but he values spending quality time with them and sharing the journey of learning something together. “My wife also plays the piano and we all enjoy singing; music is part of our family.”
Sport is another thread. As a Puerto Rican, Lopez follows baseball closely and recently enjoyed the World Baseball Classic. Much of his spare time, however, is spent watching his daughters play lacrosse and volleyball.
Home is New Jersey, with a daily commute into SiriusPoint’s office in One World Trade Center, New York. He returns to Puerto Rico at least once a year, where his childhood room still looks “pretty much the same as when I left.” His daughters “love spending time in my mom's house,” and the family alternates visits between the island and New Jersey.
For an industry wrestling with the practicalities of transformation, Lopez’s story is a reminder that successful change is as much about pacing people and culture as it is about platforms and data hubs and that even the most committed technologists still need space for music, family and a little baseball.
