Catherine Lesourd starts a two-year mandate as President of APCAL. In this article, she lays out the objectives of her presidentship and the opportunities that lie ahead for APCAL and its members. 

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Can you present APCAL in a few words?

 

The professional association of insurance brokers of Luxembourg (APCAL) is the only professional insurance brokerage association of Luxembourg created in 2012. We gather more than 80 brokers both life and non-life who represent the large majority of the active players. The association focuses on its three main missions which are the representation, the trainings and the promotion and defense of all its members and more broadly of the brokerage sector in Luxembourg. Training became with the strong regulation environment a key component of our mission. APCAL is committed to offering training and to invite its members and future members to specific conferences and training courses in order to best prepare them for the challenges of the profession, to facilitate access to the profession and enable them to comply with their obligations.

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“We definitely are willing to maintain a path of growth in order to provide to all our members the needed support.”

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What are the main objectives of your mandate?

 

I have a mandate of 2 years during which I intend to continue and reinforce the strategy plan initiated during my predecessor’s mandate. This is a team work in which all the administrators are strongly involved. We definitely are willing to maintain a path of growth in order to provide to all our members the needed support in a more and more complex professional and legal environment. In this context we have reinforced our internal administrative team who strongly contribute to make our strategy plan a success. In 2021 we will focus our development on three axes. First, expending the training program, providing English sessions and creating an ended quiz in order to insure the quality of the e learning sessions. Second, reinforcing our technical committees to address specific issues and defend the interests of our profession including a strong legal and compliance hub run by Lorenzo Stipulante. And finally achieving our digital transformation.

 

What challenges and opportunities do you identify for the Luxembourg insurance sector in the next five years?

 

The insurance industry in Luxembourg is operating quite a few changes due to the challenges and opportunities this industry is currently and will have to face in the coming years. Challenges are multiple: Brexit, Regulations, Reduction of interest rates, Covid 19, potential economic downturn….

Due to Brexit the landscape of the insurance industry is evolving gaining an international recognition not only in life insurance as it’s used to be but also henceforth in the non-life sector. The new actors that have chosen Luxembourg as their new European hub are indeed non-life insurers and brokers entailing a significant rise of written premium. In Luxembourg as in all European counties, the insurance industry will continue to face a regulatory wave that will continue to hit our sector the coming years as  Solvency II, IFRS9 / 17, RGPD, LCB-FT, IDD, PRIIPS, DAC 6…..and will compelled brokers and carriers to always reinforce their compliance procedures to  enforce those new mandatory regulations. Those challenges combined with the inevitable digitalization transformation process increase pressure to maintain profitability. APCAL follows up all these changes and keeps its members informed, trained and prepared.