Institutional

The European Insurance and Occupational Pensions Authority, known as Eiopa, on Monday published its Insurance Risk Dashboard for the first half of 2023. This assessment showed macroeconomic exposures as the most significant concerns at this time. 

Luxembourg life assurance and wealth management company OneLife has been fined 580,000 euro by the country’s insurance supervisor Commissariat aux Assurances (CAA) after “certain failures” were detected in the firm’s anti-money laundering and counter-financing of terrorism (AML-CFT) systems.

The European Central Bank and the EU’s top insurance body have warned that businesses and households are not sufficiently insured against climate-related disasters, raising the risk of financial instability and economic crises. A discussion paper issued this week argued that catastrophe bonds should play a bigger role in bridging the overall climate insurance gap, while national and European authorities need to encourage uptake of policies to prevent such crises from occurring. 

This edition of IO Talks Luxembourg hears from the managing director at M&G in Luxembourg, Micaela Forelli, on the firm’s positioning in the European funds market, on private markets and Eltifs, on cost savings and how the firm’s redundancy programme at M&G group is affecting its Luxembourg business.

Following an accident in December, Antonio Corpas, chief executive officer of The OneLife Group, passed away last Saturday, the company has announced. He was 54 years old. 

Global insurers are diversifying their portfolios and most of them - 87 percent - plan to increase allocations to private investments over the next two years, which would represent a three percent average increase versus their current allocation, Blackrock’s latest global insurance survey shows.  

Accompanying Luxembourg’s finance minister Yuriko Backes on her official visit to Stockholm, Luxembourg’s financial community this week sought to strengthen its financial ties with Sweden, considered a “natural partner” for the Grand Duchy. Backes also discussed plans to support the reconstruction of Ukraine with her Swedish counterpart.

Travelling back to Luxembourg, Backes said on Twitter that her visit had been “very productive.” Backes was accompanied by a Luxembourg for Finance delegation and several representatives of Luxembourg’s financial services sector.

The financial industry often baulked at the tens of billions of euros it pays for EU’s comprehensive regulation framework put in place post 2008 financial crisis. With markets in turmoil over Russia-Ukraine, that tone now is different.

The Luxembourg Fund Labelling Agency (commonly-known as LuxFLAG) has announced the launch of its Sustainable Insurance Product Label certification product.

This certification will be awarded to “eligible insurance products that assist with the transition to mitigate and adapt to the climate crisis, as well other environmental and social issues” that are part of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals.

The modern bank and insurance broker can to a large extent fill the gap left by the major banks. He can do this by giving personal advice to his clients and fully mapping out their financial situation. Digitalisation also plays an important role in this.

This emerged from an interview with Marc Dhondt (photo), the Belgian representative of the Luxembourg life insurance company OneLife, as part of the BZB congress that was held on 21 October.