As he eased into his new position of President of Lockton Benefits, Bob Reiff answered the questions of Global Benefits Vision and reflected upon the challenges ahead.

As the largest UK market place, Group Life is the best place to start our review. Every year the two most important surveys for U.K. Group Risk Insurers come out in April and June. Swiss Re’s ‘Group Watch’ shows how the Group Risk market is doing, and ORC International’s syndicated Group Risk adviser research shows how the industry is performing across the whole customer journey and anticipated future trends.

Captive solutions were created in the late 19th century to provide more flexible solutions in the insurance market. Since then they have evolved to become a practical form of risk management, offering multinationals two financial advantages: lower costs and more control over how they are insured.

In the 20th-century, companies were predominantly capital intensive and competed on cost efficiency. The 21st-century company is different: competitive success depends on a company’s intangible assets, such as human capital and the capacity for research and development, requiring significant and sustained investment.

Does it still make sense for a multinational company’s employee benefits plan to deal with 28 different social and tax legislations in the EU? Does it make sense for a multinational company to set up as many employee benefits plans as the number of the EU countries in which it operates?

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Going West – An Interview of IEBA’s new chairman Marco Giacomelli De-risking pension liabilities Norman Dreger Expatriates: the interplay between Assistance and Insurance Ludovic Bayard and  Emmanuel Légeron Getting the value back: an employee benefits captives primer Tony Hore Employee Liabilities and risk management Paul Pittman Multinational Pooling: the value of reinsurance Peter de Vries and Nele Segers Why happier workers matter more than you think Alex Edmans Lockton May

Certainly captives require more administration and an empowered internal advocate who can maximize utilization. But for mid-size and up international companies the benefits can be extensive. With barriers to mobility changing and global salary scales emerging, there is a movement toward common terms, pay, and benefit plans for mobile employees.

Today’s globalized and interconnected economies rely on an increasingly mobile workforce with a growing number of workers across sectors planning careers abroad. But while everybody recognize that expatriate employees are a key asset for companies, providing them with adequate benefits can be a huge challenge.

Human resource professionals from around the globe joined Lockton Global for the 2015 Global Benefits Forum May 4-6 in Barcelona, Spain. The two-and-a-half day conference – “The Future of Global HR & Employee Benefits” – was designed to help human resources professionals enhance their understanding of current international employee benefit trends and developments.

When it comes to extracting the true value from employee benefit captive risk financing, it’s not just about the direct cost savings anymore, says Tony Hore of Allianz. Here he shares some thoughts, interspersed with real-world case studies from his exclusive interview with Global Benefits Visions’ editorial staff.

When comparing pooling networks, a distinction is often made between Integrated and Non-Integrated Networks. But we suggest a far more important distinction can be made, based on whether or not the network’s pooling operations are based on reinsurance.

As he juggled his full-time position and his new role as chairman of the rapidly-expanding International Employee Benefits Association, Generali’s Marco Giacomelli took a few minutes to sit down with the editors of Global Benefits Vision and reflect upon the changing nature of the industry and the association.

Does corporate social responsibility improve the value of a company? When making decisions, should companies only care about shareholders or should they take other stakeholders (e.g., employees, customers, the environment) into account? This is a decades-old debate, but despite many cogent views on both sides, there’s surprisingly little hard evidence.

The trend for employers to move from defined benefit (DB) to defined contribution (DC) pension plans is a global phenomenon. Many multinational companies now have pension guidelines that encourage or even require pension provision to be granted using a defined contribution approach, and some emerging economies without long-standing pension systems have skipped DB benefit provision altogether.

In order to align Global Benefits Vision with the needs of the global employee benefits industry, we conducted a survey in November and December 2014, asking what potential readers would like to read in a specialized magazine and how it should be presented and distributed.

Ricardo Almeida MAXIS GBN Head of Distribution As Head of Distribution, Ricardo Almeida is responsible for the development, enhancement and execution of MAXIS GBN strategy globally. His team works with our strategic partners to develop employee benefit solutions for multinational clients across the globe. Ricardo has worked in the employee benefits industry since 1999. He has been with MAXIS GBN since 2016 as its Americas distribution leader, where he

Sleep has become widely recognised as playing a really important role in our overall health and wellness – alongside diet, stress management and exercise.

Global Benefits Vision asked Lance Henderson, Head of Sales and Relationship Management at Zurich Global Employee Benefits Solutions, about his view on latest trends in Employee Benefits and discussed topics like the “Duty of Care” concept, the Income Protection Gap, and solutions that can help multinationals to address those challenges.

Every year, from 5 to 20 percent of the people in the United States will become infected with influenza virus. An average of 200,000 of these people will require hospitalization and up to 50,000 will die.

Jonathan Maddison Achievers EMEA Managing Director Jon Maddison is Achievers’ EMEA Managing Director, with responsibility for the services that we provide to customers across the region. Jon has more than a decade’s experience of leading successful Software-as-a-Service businesses. Immediately prior to joining Achievers he spent four years as Vice President of SaaS and Software Solutions with NGA HR, an HCM software leader. In this role, Jon held responsibility for

Matt Frost matt_frost@ajg.com Arthur J. Gallagher & Co Business Development Director of Communications for the Employee Engagement and Communications team Matt Frost is the Business Development Director of Communications for the Employee Engagement and Communications team at Arthur J. Gallagher & Co. Matt’s primary role is helping clients identify their employee communication needs and develop tailored strategies that will engage employees and support business results. Based in the UK, Matt

Theo Lutgendorff theo.lutgendorff@sprenkelsenverschuren.nl Sprenkels & Verschuren Partner Theo Lutgendorff, MBA, is a partner at Sprenkels & Verschuren, a privately held and independent actuarial, pensions, and investment consulting firm headquartered in Amsterdam. The firm is a member in the Abelica network of actuaries and consultants. Theo has over 25 years of experience in Dutch pensions and in global benefits. His previous roles include managing consultant at Aon Consulting Netherlands, principal

Melanie Liedtke melanie.liedtke1@allianz.com Allianz Global Benefits Senior Marketing & Communication Manager Melanie Liedtke joined the Allianz International Employee Benefits Network in November 2007. She is Senior Marketing & Communication Manager within the Market Management department of Allianz Global Benefits. Her areas of responsibility include external and internal communication, international conference organization, marketing material development and advertising. Before joining the company, she worked as a press spokesperson at Allianz Lebensversicherungs-AG,

Paula Caligiuri pcaligiuri@gmail.com  Northeastern University Professor of International Business As a Distinguished Professor of International Business at Northeastern University, Paula Caligiuri directs the CALL Program, a corporate-sponsored international volunteerism program in partnership with the National Peace Corps Association. Paula has authored or co-authored several award- winning articles and books in the area of expatriate management, global leadership development, and cultural agility, including Cultural Agility: Building a Pipeline of Successful

Guy Abbiss guy.abbiss@abbisscadres.com  Abbiss Cadres LLP – Founding Partners of the CELIA Alliance Managing Partner Guy is the Managing Partner of Abbiss Cadres LLP and one of the founding Partners of the CELIA Alliance. After a decade of experience leading UK and international employment and employee incentives practices in UK and international law firms based in the City of London, Guy founded Abbiss Cadres in 2008. His expertise is

Michel Moreau michel.moreau@aginsurance.be AG Insurance Business Development for Employee Benefits & Healthcare Michel Moreau began his career in employee benefits in 1993 at Assubel, then moved to Swiss Life Belgium and later to Delta Lloyd Life. Since May 2015, Michel heads Business Development for Employee Benefits & Healthcare at AG Insurance. In his various positions, Michel was in charge of relations with international networks: first with Swiss Life Network and