Luc Rasschaert (WEALINS): The Emergence of Business Innovation in Insurance
Life insurance in Luxembourg has experienced sustained growth over the past years, thanks to a strong capacity for innovation throughout the ecosystem. Here is an interview with Luc Rasschaert, CEO of WEALINS.
How is the insurance sector Innovating?
In our industry, the whole ecosystem must innovate if we want to progress. You only must look back at the last 30 years to see this phenomenon: in the early 1990s, the freedom to provide services was made possible by the combined efforts of banks, insurers, and regulators. Subsequently, product innovations followed and in the late 1990s and in the 2000s, corporate innovation led to the invention of structures enabling our businesses to reach economic viability. In recent years, considerable technological advances have enabled us to automate and simplify our entire value chain. Finance was ahead of the game with its Fintech, but we quickly caught up with our Insurtech.
“Our culture combines innovation and entrepreneurship: both are inevitably linked."
​Luc Rasschaert - WEALINS
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How does a Company like WEALINS stay competitive?
The key to our success lies in a culture of tangible innovation to offer solutions to ease the life of our partners and end customers. This approach makes us attractive in two ways: it cements loyalty among our customers and employees while attracting users and employees won over by our approach. We are fortunate to have integrated three companies into WEALINS. Each one of them has contributed to a strong and diverse culture. IWI and Foyer International joined forces in 2017, and they were joined by GB Life in 2020. The association of these three recognized players has enabled the emergence of a company that stands out in terms of quality service, digital solutions, and innovation covering Europe and beyond! This winning combination allowed us to change our entire IT system while innovating to reskill and upskill our teams. We took up this challenge by granting each of them the autonomy to get involved. Our credo, 'You Lead, We Empower,' also applies to our employees. To strengthen our corporate culture, they were engaged from the identification of areas for improvement, then to suggest solutions using a bottom-up approach. Our culture combines innovation and entrepreneurship: both are inevitably linked.
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What risks and opportunities have you identified?
Let's start with AI, which everyone is talking about. I hope that this will become an opportunity, but in my view, machines will need a huge dataset to produce results that can be used in insurance. Still about opportunities, I think that Europe should emerge from the current crises greater and more open, but one thing is certain: the world is speeding up and cycles and developments are becoming faster. About regulation, I hope that the action of European regulators will remain in phase with three major sectors: green economy, industry, and finance. All three must move forward together if we want to stay competitive with the United States and China. When I read the Letta report, I think back to 2014 and the Common Reporting Standard (CRS). Many people were afraid, even though it facilitated 10 years of strong growth! A single financial market will remove many of the obstacles. The main risk I see concerns human capital. We need skilled, multilingual talent to perpetuate the long-term partnerships we have forged with our customers in all countries. Luxembourg was once a phoenix: we have the experience and the courage to reinvent ourselves once again. I recommend reading Peter Hinssen's book, ‘The Phoenix and the Unicorn’.
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