Congratulations to all the 2022 nominees for the Geneva Association Women in Insurance Award! These outstanding female leaders – nominated for achievements in climate change & environment, health, innovation, inclusive insurance or diversity, equity & inclusion – are a great demonstration of insurance’s progress toward gender balance at the senior management level.
The 2022 award winner will be announced on 12 May!
The annual award celebrates women insurance leaders whose work positively impacts society and contributes to making insurance a force for good
ZURICH, 12 MAY 2022 – The Geneva Association is pleased to announce the winner of the 2022 Geneva Association Women in Insurance Award: Anne Fortin, Executive Vice President, Direct Distribution and Chief Marketing and Communications Officer, Intact Financial Corporation (IFC).
Accompanies the full report Gig Economy Work: Mind the protection gaps.
Government-supported social retirement plans (Pillar I) are under extreme financial pressure due increased life expectancies and low fertility rates. Individuals are compelled to provide for themselves a suitable retirement through occupational pensions (Pillar II) and personal savings (Pillar III). The insurance industry can help as it is the only industry that accepts longevity risk as a core business, and is a long-term provider of lifetime annuities—an insurance that a person will not outlive their retirement savings.
Technology and new data sources are changing our economy and society fundamentally, and promise to transform the insurance industry as well. Digitalization is changing the role of insurance, from pure risk protection towards predicting and preventing risks. The risks insurers cover and the ways they underwrite, distribute, and manage claims are also changing. In an increasingly digitalized world some risks will become less frequent, while others, like cyber, will gain in importance, and again others may cease to exist.
The emergence of big data analytics and artificial intelligence has triggered a deep transformation of the insurance industry. Established insurers invest in the digitisation of their processes and products, while an increasing number of InsurTech companies are entering the market as insurers, distributors of insurance solutions, and at other points along the industry’s value chain. Both incumbents and newcomers are developing insurance products that use large amounts of data to assess, select, price, predict and prevent risks that in some cases were previously considered uninsurable.
Risk exposures, driven by digitisation, urbanisation and climate change as well as value accumulation and concentration, tend to outgrow insurance premiums, leaving individuals, households, firms and the public sector alike underinsured. The root causes and prevalence of insurance protection gaps vary widely across the globe, reflecting different stages of economic development as well as social, institutional and cultural peculiarities.
In emerging countries, the global trend of higher healthcare expenditure has not led to increased penetration of private health insurance, which remains insignificant with a 2% share of total healthcare expenditure. With the right regulatory framework, private health insurance can have an important and beneficial effect on the sustainability of health schemes to which individuals, governments and employers contribute.
