Insurers, AI and the Fourth Industrial Revolution

Frank Bria, Senior Vice President, North American Treaty, Gen Re, Stamford

Over the past decade, U. S. tech firms have made significant advancements in artificial intelligence (AI) and robotics, making it far easier and efficient to automate tasks and functions across industries. Recently, AI’s ability to rapidly collect and analyze large, diverse and unstructured data sets is proving beneficial in the fight against COVID‑19. AI affects all types of risks and lines of insurance, and the Workers’ Compensation market has a particularly large stake in its development.

IFRS 17 – A Fundamental Revision of Insurance Accounting

Stefan Engeländer, Actuary DAV, Senior Manager KPMG Audit Insurance, Cologne

Financial reporting that is in line with International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) is in widespread use by both consolidated groups of entities and individual companies. Up to now, however, accounting forinsurance contracts was driven by very diverse, locally developed traditional approaches. The new IFRS 17 “Insurance Contracts”, to be applied from 2023 onwards, introduces for the first time a comprehensive, consistent and accounting-driven approach for insurance contracts. It’s about 280 paragraphs long, making it one of the longest IFRS, to provide guidance on what to do but the background of the requirements is not always immediately clear. This article provides such background information.

Leader’s Role Set to Change

Ulrich Geuther, business coach, trainer and consultant, based in Lisbon, Portugal

Seen through the lens of the coronavirus crisis, it becomes clear that a paradigm shift is taking place within leadership in the 21st century and that it is being accelerated by the crisis. The role set of senior managershas expanded and the core of leadership has changed. The following article explains this expansion of change management in businesses and the impacts it has on the leadership role.

Change Management in Times of Uncertainty

Oliver Röhrich, management trainer and coach, Lisbon, Portugal

The world has changed – and is going to keep changing. Nobody knows what the next challenges will be or how long they will last. Even if COVID‑19 goes away, there might be new (virus) threats in the future. We have to face it: we live in a VUCA world, a world which can change fast from one moment to the other. So, the question is, how can you work with something if you don’t even know when it will happen?

Lessons Learned from the Pandemic – Human Resource Development in the Insurance Industry in the COVID‑19 Era

Mirko von Haxthausen, Head of Gen Re Business School, Cologne

Gen Re has set up a decentralised, global, interdisciplinary team to support its business partners with digital advanced-training solutions inthese challenging times of the coronavirus pandemic. The article showsthat digital trainings and educations are valuable elements of human resource development.