Captive insurance has been an increasingly popular alternative risk transfer mechanism for U.S. companies for decades. But what may come as a surprise is that one of the great growth opportunities isn’t a new property or casualty exposure. It’s employee benefits.

Global Benefits Vision: What is AEIP’s mission in general terms and how does it relate to global employee benefits? Bruno Gabellieri: AEIP is mainly a lobbyist organization; it is registered as a special-interest lobby with the European Parliament and the European Commission. I am also registered with EIOPA as an independent member of the occupational pensions stakeholder group, because I’m the Secretary-General of AEIP.

Negotiating Across Cultures Sir Richard Lewis and  Michael Gates The Promise of More to Come: U.S. Benefit Captives on the Verge of a Breakthrough Peter Bandarenko How CEOs should be Paid: Beware vesting periods! Alex Edmans Banker’s Bonuses: French Legal Aspects Stéphanie Le Men Interview Bruno Gabellieri, Secretary General AEIP: Expert facilitator serving European ideals  

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? Plausibly, the answer is no. Yet that is exactly what happens in the European Union — and for

For the PDF version, click here. October, 2015 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. Global Benefits Vision: Give us a little background about your career. Bob Reiff: I’ve only been president of Lockton Benefit Group since January 1 though I’ve been with Lockton for five years, serving as

Lockton Benefits President Bob Reiff‘s interview with Global Benefits Vision  is available here as a free-access PDF file. The text-only version is available here. Website : www.lockton.com/locktonglobal

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Extending an existing P/C captive to EB Marine Charbonnier and Thierry Mestach UK Group Risk market update Paul Avis Mobility of workers in the EU and related impact on social rights Francesco Briganti Why companies need to think long term Alex Edmans An Interview with Lockton Benefits President Bob Reiff

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?

IEBA Chairman Marco Giacomelli‘s interview with Global Benefits Vision  is available here as a PDF file. IEBA, the International Employee Benefits Association, is the largest organization of people working in global employee benefits, with more than 700 members from around the world. Website : ieba.org.uk

THE INAUGURAL ISSUE OF Global Benefits Vision   MAGAZINE IS NOW ON-LINE AS PLANNED. On September 9, 2015 at 09:09 UTC and right on schedule, the GBV  team released the first issue of the magazine. It is available for subscribers at www.global-benefits-vision.com/the-inaugural-issue/ ! As of release time, GBV  has 549 subscribers, most of them belonging to organizations having purchased a group subscription and to their corporate clients. Going forward, GBV is looking forward to having many

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Read the (prospective) client survey conducted in December 2014, as published in the Inaugural Issue of Global Benefits Vision magazine here

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 a compact, fast but mid-resolution version, the prototype issue of Global Benefits Vision magazine is now made available to you on-line. Its contents are identical to the version published a few days ago. Let us know which one you prefer: the fast one, or the hi-res one? Please note that most of the contents of the prototype issue is based on articles published elsewhere and rewritten for Global