Who is driving the bus: it’s a partnership

The theme of leadership continued into lunch with a discussion between a risk manager, an insurer and a broker, moderated by FERMA board member Dirk Wegener, Vice President of FERMA and Global Head of Corporate Insurance for Deutsche Bank. He posed the question: who is leading in the risk transfer process. “The overarching conclusion,” he said afterwards, “is that it is a team effort. There are some differences depending on the individual company or risk but overall the risk manager is the leader.”

The perspective of the risk manager came from Annemarie Schouw, President of NARIM and Manager Risk and Insurance Tata Steel, who opened the discussion. In her view, the risk manager takes the leadership position. He or she knows the risk and knows what to transfer and the transfer process. Annemarie stressed the importance of insurance buyers, brokers and insurers working together especially to bring innovation into insurance products.

Suresh Krishnan, Head of Global Accounts Division Europe, for Chubb, stressed that for insurers it is clearly the client who is driving the relationship. “The risk manager is the leader. They are the ultimate decision maker.”

Henrik Ryden, CEO, Northern Europe for JLT, said there were circumstances where the broker could play more of a leading role. “For areas of risk where the risk manager has a really good understanding, they are clearly driving the process. When it comes to something more esoteric, when it may be they don’t have the same experience, then they may rely more on the broker.”

As the discussion continued, it was clear that both risk managers, brokers and insurers value long term relationships where they have time to understand both the business being insured and the expectations and processes on all sides. Many feel that a 12 month contract is not helpful. As Henrik Ryden said: “There is a big demand for true long term agreements.”