It is important for German companies to position themselves as attractive employer brands, especially when competing for young talent in the job market. In today’s tight job market, factors that once promised reliable success in attracting new employees – remuneration, the number of leave days, pensions, company cars – are no longer the only things younger generations are looking for. Instead, non-monetary issues such as work-life balance, working atmosphere, and identification are of prime concern. These are the issues that companies should be projecting in their branding and benefits strategies.

Global Benefits Vision: Thanks for joining us today, Marco – it’s good to have you back. What is your definition of insurtech? Marco Giacomelli: Insurtech is a specialized evolution or byproduct of fintech, which is a combination of the words “finance” and “technology.” As a practical definition, we can say that insurtech is sets of strategic initiatives, specific tools, and processes designed to achieve savings and efficiencies in all insurance processes.

Lockton’s yearly Forum distinctive format includes three regional editions in North America, Asia, and in Europe. Most of the contents is common across all editions with some variations in respect of regional issues.

A measles vaccine protects against measles infection. By introducing a bit of weakened virus, the immune system learns how to deal with it, so when a real measles virus comes along, it can eliminate it. But does the immune system learn more from the vaccine? Recent research suggests, rather intriguingly, that it does.

Date Article Title Author Tags Link 12/2019 History of Pooling at Allianz Michael Scheu Pooling Issue 044 12/2019 History of Pooling at Allianz François Jacquemin Pooling Issue 044 12/2019 Vaping and e-cigarettes Allison Kurti Health Issue 044 12/2019 Hospital Price Transparency in the U.S. at Last? Neeraj Sood Healthcare Issue 044 12/2019 To Lose Weight, Eat Less or Exercise More? Juan Ignacio Pérez Iglesias Health, Exercise Issue 044 12/2019

Reto Heini reto.heini@zurich.com Zurich Employee Benefits Network Senior Corporate Relationship Manager – Member of Executive Staff Reto is a Senior Corporate Relationship Manager and a member of the Executive Staff of Zurich Global Employee Benefits Services, Zurich Insurance’s multinational pooling network. He looks after multinational companies in Continental Europe with regards to their employee benefit plans around the world (pooling, captive and alternative solutions). He joined Zurich from Swiss Life

Dr.rer.pol. Paul Wöhrmann paul.woehrmann@zurich.com Zurich Insurance Head of Captive Services EMEA, Asia Pacific and Latin America Dr.rer.pol. Paul Wöhrmann has spent his entire career at Zurich Insurance Company where he currently is the Head of Captive Services for a geographical area spanning Europe, Middle East, Africa (EMEA), Asia – Pacific and Latin America. As such, he leads Zurich’s involvement in the captive market as well as the integration of life

Samir Chatterjee Claremont Graduate University Professor of Technology Design & Management Samir Chatterjee is the Fletcher Jones Chair of Technology Design & Management at CGU’s Center for Information Systems & Technology (CISAT). He is also considered a leading technology designer and strategist for 21st-century health care. His entry into health care field has been via Telemedicine. Today he leads the emerging field of Persuasive Technology, a stimulating interdisciplinary research field

Michael L. Millenson Northwestern University Adjunct Associate Professor of Medicine, Feinberg School of Medicine After a career in journalism that included three Pulitzer Prize nominations, I turned to research and consulting. Following the publication of a landmark book in 1997, “Demanding Medical Excellence: Doctors and Accountability in the Information Age” (University of Chicago Press), I have written extensively in the lay and peer-reviewed literature about quality of care, patient safety

Andrew Boyd University of Illinois at Chicago Assistant Professor, Biomedical and Health Information Sciences Dr. Andrew D. Boyd is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Biomedical and Health Information Sciences. For his contribution to the field of Health Informatics, he was awarded 2015 UIC Researcher of the Year in Clinical Sciences, Rising Star. He has over 30 publications (with over 1500 citations). He has been a PI, Co-PI, Co-I

Nick Haslam University of Melbourne Professor of Psychology Nick is a social psychologist whose interests include prejudice, psychiatric classification and refugee mental health. His books include Psychology in the Bathroom, Introduction to Personality and Intelligence, Yearning to Breathe Free: Seeking Asylum in Australia, and Introduction to the Taxometric Method.

Theresa Simpkin Anglia Ruskin University Visiting Fellow Terri is currently a Visiting Fellow at the Lord Ashcroft International Business School. Terri is also the Higher and Further Education Principal at CNet Training and works with partners in the Data Centre sector on a suite of research initiatives investigating workforce issues. These include skill and labour shortages and gender issues. Work currently underway will add a different perspective to the

Amina Aitsi-Selmi University College London, UCL Honorary Clinical Senior Lecturer, Epidemiology and Public Health Department Dr Amina Aitsi-Selmi studied Medicine and Social Anthropology at the University of Cambridge, during which time she spent some time exploring the Cuban public health system and reported this in the journal Public Health. She is a public health doctor and academic specialising in health inequalities, and has also worked in Sudan (on a humanitarian

Nicholas Fitzkee Mississippi State University Associate Professor in the Department of Chemistry Dr. Nicholas Fitzkee is an associate professor in the Department of Chemistry at Mississippi State University. He earned his Ph.D. in Biophysics from Johns Hopkins University with Dr. George Rose, and he completed a postdoc at the National Institutes of Health with Dr. Ad Bax. Dr. Fitzkee is broadly interested in using NMR spectroscopy to study the

Inge Vanderreken inge.vanderreken@allenovery.com Allen & Overy belgium Partner Inge specialises in the full range of law involving employment, employee benefits and incentives. Being an active member of Allen & Overy’s Global Employment & Benefits Group, she regularly advises on multi-jurisdictional employment matters. A strong focus of her work is the advice on matters in relation with restructurings, outsourcings and HR-compliance with whistleblowing currently being a key topic. She has

Markulf Behrendt markulf.behrendt@allenovery.com Allen & Overy Hamburg, Germany Partner, Global Head of Employment & Benefits Markulf’s combination of extensive experience in employment law, regular advice to leading B2C companies on complex proceedings, and his lecturing and speaking engagements on human resources issues, keep him at the cutting edge of his field. He holds several key management roles such as Global Head of Employment & Benefits and Co-head of the

Camille Wattrelos camille.wattrelos@allenovery.com Allen & Overy France Employment & Benefits Associate Camille Wattrelos is an associate in the Paris employment law department. She advises French and foreign companies on labour, employment and social security law issues, including employee representative bodies, working time, international mobility and savings schemes. She also provides assistance to clients in relation to restructurings as well as on litigation matters. Having studied law in Paris and

The heart rate monitor built into the new Apple Watch has sparked sharp debate over its risks and benefits, even though the feature was cleared by the Food and Drug Administration. But out of the spotlight, the FDA has been doing away with regulatory action altogether on many diagnostic health apps targeting consumers, seeking to accelerate digital health adoption by defining many of these as “low risk” medical devices.

Claire Toumieux claire.toumieux@allenovery.com Allen & Overy France Employment & Benefits Partner Claire Toumieux heads the Paris employment law department. She advises businesses seeking to define, implement and/or improve their human resource management strategies. She has built up a strong reputation in assisting corporate groups, both listed and unlisted, and investment funds through strategic operations such as mergers and acquisitions, collective bargaining agreements and reorganisations. She also represents them both

It was March 2014 when I received a phone call as I was working in my office. The person on the other end introduced herself as Dr. Linda Houston-Feenstra, chief cardiac nurse of Loma Linda University SACHS Heart Clinic. She said that she has heard about my work on persuasive technology, in particular how it can influence attitude or behaviour change in people. She wanted me to assist her with her heartfailure patients.

Wearing a fitness tracking device could earn you cash from your health insurance company. At first, this sounds lucrative for the people who participate, and good for the companies, who want healthier insurance customers. But it’s not quite so simple.

Grief can seem desolate for those in the thick of it who often feel unable to imagine a way out of their suffering. But, as time passes, the pain usually dampens or becomes more fleeting.

Research suggests that around 70% of people will experience an illogical sense of being a phoney at work at some point in their careers. It’s called the impostor phenomenon (also known, erroneously, as a syndrome). These impostor feelings typically manifest as a fear of failure, fear of success, a sometimes obsessive need for perfection, and an inability to accept praise and achievement. The phenomenon is also characterised by a genuine belief that at some point you, as the “impostor”, are going to be found out for being a fake in your role.

Every surface we touch has its own unique chemical properties. It’s because of these properties that some materials stick to surfaces, while others slide off. For a person, a sticky surface may be a minor annoyance, but for a bacterial cell, surface attachment can be a matter of life and death. Bacteria have evolved their own surfaces to be sticky, like Velcro.

With large international companies managing and financing their group-wide risks centrally, there is a pressing need for a central risk management tool. Captive concepts, which have been around for many years, answer this need and have become very popular in risk management.

Whistleblowers have been making headlines almost every month this past year – and this follows a string of scandals such as LuxLeaks, Panama and the Paradise Papers as well as Dieselgate and Cambridge Analytica, which have exposed the limited assistance available for people seeking to expose wrongful corporate behaviour in the public interest. Only 10 EU member states have comprehensive legislation in place, with others offering partial protection at most. At EU level, there are some existing instruments in place that provide for whistleblower protection, but these have varying levels of detail and remain predominantly limited to financial services, transport safety and environmental protection.

After 60 years of fierce debate, France has finally decided to reform its income tax system and to shift the burden of income tax collection from the State to employers, thus aligning itself with all other EU Member States and most western countries which deduct income tax under a Pay As You Earn (PAYE) system. As of 1 January 2019, employers will be compelled to collect income tax through deducting it from their employees’ salaries and to pay it to the French Tax Department.