From Ireland To San Diego Kieran Sweeney trades his rugby gear for an innovative insurance business

Irish rugby player Kieran Sweeney has transferred his competitive spirit from the field to the workplace and has little time left for playing these days. Now president and CEO of both YouZoom Inc., and Arrowhead General Insurance Agency Inc., Sweeney held his first presidential title at age 27 at a reinsurance agency.

The reinsurance industry, put simply, is “the insuring of insurance companies.” Or, as a precocious 10-year-old might put it, “boring squared.”

Featured in San Diego Metropolitan’s “Hot Prospects 2000,” the affiliate of Arrowhead, YouZoom Inc., is among a new breed of e-businesses out to revolutionize the insurance transaction. Together with a team of computer and industry experts, Sweeney created an Internet solution benefiting all links of the insurance distribution chain from consumers to agents to providers.

This vision was realized in December 1999, serving as the first Internet company that not only allows consumers to receive multiple insurance quotes, but also enables the user to instantly purchase a policy online from the local insurance agent’s Web site.

Arriving from Ireland Jan. 1, 1992, Sweeney first lived in New York City and soon afterward moved to San Diego.
September will be a busy month for Sweeney. He will be recognized at the 40 Under Forty luncheon Sept. 22, and the following day he and Kathy Witz get married.