Jewelers Mutual Group has announced that chief executive officer Scott Murphy (pictured, left) will retire at the end of 2026, capping a 12-year tenure during which the company expanded from a specialty jewelry insurer into a broader platform of insurance and technology-driven business solutions.
Mike Alexander (pictured, right), currently president, will succeed Murphy as president and CEO effective January 1, 2027. Murphy will remain on the company's board of directors.
Murphy joined Jewelers Mutual in January 2015 after serving as an executive partner at Triad Analytic Solutions, an insurance consulting firm, and holding earlier leadership roles including chief operating officer at GMAC Insurance and management positions at Great American, Infinity Insurance and Windsor Insurance Group. Alexander joined Jewelers Mutual the same year, rising to chief operating officer before his promotion to president in 2025.
The company's growth under Murphy accelerated notably in its later years. Jewelers Mutual now serves more than two million customers across the US and Canada and expanded internationally last year with the acquisition of Jewellers Loop in Australia.
In the 12 months before this announcement, the company also acquired the personal jewelry insurance business of Jewelry Insurance Brokerage of North America, adding a book of coverage that had been distributed through independent agents since 2007, and picked up EventGuard, a specialty program from AI-driven insurance distributor Indemn, moves that pushed the company beyond its traditional jewelry-only coverage base.
Murphy credited the jewelry industry itself as the reason for his time at the company.
"The jewelry industry is filled with remarkable people who pour their passion, creativity, and craftsmanship into everything they do, and it has been a privilege to serve them," Murphy said, adding that he was proud of what the team built and excited for what Alexander would do next.
Alexander's elevation follows a role in which he was directly responsible for translating the same expansion strategy into daily operations.
As chief operating officer, he oversaw partnerships like the company's integration with homeowners insurer Orion180 to extend jewelry coverage into that carrier's quoting system, and later helped guide the operational side of the JIBNA and Jewellers Loop deals.
"I'm incredibly excited for what's ahead," Alexander said, describing Murphy's tenure as having built an extraordinary foundation and saying he was ready to build on that momentum.
Robert Reeg, chair of Jewelers Mutual's board, credited Murphy with reshaping the company's ambitions.
"Scott had a clear-eyed vision for what Jewelers Mutual could become, not just a better insurer, but a genuine leader to the jewelry industry," Reeg said, adding that the board was equally confident in Alexander's ability to lead the company's next chapter.
Jewelers Mutual remains the only US carrier that specializes specifically in insuring jewelry and jewelry businesses, occupying a niche segment that has grown steadily as rising gold and diamond prices push more consumers toward standalone jewelry coverage rather than relying on the low sublimits, often as little as $1,000 to $2,500, that standard homeowners policies typically apply to jewelry losses.
The leadership transition lands at a moment when the company has been actively consolidating adjacent parts of that market, through the JIBNA and EventGuard acquisitions, while also expanding its underwriting technology through tools like AI-assisted virtual inspections.
For jewelers, brokers and personal lines carriers working alongside Jewelers Mutual, continuity in that acquisition-and-integration strategy, now led by an incoming CEO who ran much of it operationally as COO and president, is likely to matter more in the near term than the leadership change itself.
