Brazil’s Social Security sector has undergone several transformations since it was implemented in the distant year of 1821, when the country still was a Portuguese colony. The existing models date back to 1923, when the country’s railway companies created a Retirement and Pensions Fund to cover their employees. Today, Brazil has three main pension schemes: the General Pension Scheme, managed by the National Social Security Institute and run by the government, to which all formally employed workers are entitled; the Special Public Servants’ Regimes; and Supplemental Pension Plans.

As global markets turn more positive and the financial markets recover, employees are turning their attention to better managing their talent and headcount. While cost and efficiencies remain the key priorities in global mobility and business travel programs, we also see a new focus emerging: a duty of care to employees.

In a low-interest rate world, alternative investments may provide some relief – and unexpected benefits too. In today’s financial markets characterized by very low interest rates, higher-than-expected risks, and high volatility in equity prices, investing for the long term is a challenging proposition. Decent returns, even at the unexciting level of one two percentage points above inflation, may be difficult to achieve without bearing substantial risk.

Most multinational companies have a single property and casualty insurance policy that covers their factories and offices around the world in case of flood or fire or theft. But when it comes to global employee benefits, many have a different contract—or even many more than one—for each country, through several brokers, and a pooling or captive arrangement to boot.

Ludovic Bayard, formerly Chief commercial officer of Generali’s GEB unit, is promoted to the position of general manager, effective December 1, 2015. This is one of the outcomes of a comprehensive strategic review of GEB’s operations conducted in the second half of 2015, involving Generali’s top executives up to and including the group’s Group management committee. Other decisions pertaining to GEB’s strategy will be announced in early 2016. At

Global composite insurer Zurich in December 2015 announced the appointment of Gary Shaughnessy as CEO Global Life as well as to the Group Executive Committee. He succeeds Kristof Terryn who was appointed CEO of Zurich General Insurance in October 2015 and still acted as interim CEO for the Global Life unit (see here). Mr. Shaughnessy has been CEO of Zurich U.K. Life since June 2012; in 2014 he assumed

Click here if your browser will not go into full-screen mode This content requires a subscription or a purchase. Please login below or subscribe here.

Sleep and Health – The Forgotten Link DB Plans in Mexican Universities De-risking against the flow Denise Gómez-Hernández Crossing the Chasm From consultant to corporate C&B manager Fabiàn Bukschtein News from Belgium An Update on Pensions and Blue Collar Vs White Collar Michel Moreau Postpaid Health Insurance Plans in Brazil  Better Service Quality, Prevention and Management? Eduardo Freitas IGP Conference Report The “Changing Workforce” is upon us Adherence to

Frank A. Schmid is the new Head of AIG’s Group Benefits business and of the Disability Product Center of Excellence, GBV learned in December 2015. Frank holds a PhD in economics and a post-doc in finance from the University of Lüneburg, Germany. Dr. Schmid published numerous scholarly papers in finance and economics and was affiliated with the University of Pennsylvania, the University of Vienna, Free University of Berlin, CERGE-EI

In a  major restructuring effort, financially challenged Zurich Group in December 2015 said it will eliminate or move as many as 1,800 jobs, and announced the resignation of CEO Martin Senn. Tom de Swaan, the Chairman of the Board of Directors since 2013, has been appointed CEO ad interim. Zurich cited the August explosions at the port in Tianjin, China, and a poorly performing U.S. auto book of business

Human resources has successfully partnered with various functional areas for many years. Finance and HR partner to manage costs and optimize the value of compensation packages and other employee rewards. Operations and HR partner on devising solutions for work design, scheduling, and staffing. Marketing and HR partner to convert the firm’s brand into organizational culture and an employer brand.

Navigating the ever-changing global HR, Law & Tax, and Communications maze: An interview with Guy Abbiss, Managing Partner of Abbiss Cadres LLP and one of the founders of the CELIA Alliance of professional service firms

Depending on health insurance plans is a common reality in Brazil. According to figures released by the Brazilian Geography and Statistics Institute (IBGE) in June, 27.9% of the population had some type of health insurance plan in 2013, and more than one-third of the monthly payments were made by the policyholder’s employer. If we consider that this data is from 2013, we can assume that the total amount of private health insurance purchased by companies for their employees is even higher today.

The 2015 IGP Conference held in Boston, MA, IGP’s hometown, included three presentations that provided unique perspectives on otherwise well-known topics. GBV reports on the impact of a changing workforce and on adherence to a global benefits structure in this issue and will cover progressing from a wellness program to an integrated wellbeing approach in the March 2016 Special Issue about Wellness.

The MAXIS Conference devoted to sleep, “Sleep, a Business Case for Bedtime: The hidden Global Health Issue Impacting Employee Performance,” took place in November 2015 in Amsterdam, with the support of Zilveren Kruis, the health insurance division of Achmea.

Demographic factors and the current socio-economic context present major challenges to the statutory (i.e., state) pensions system. Lowering the statutory pension age is not an option, nor is increasing contributions. These two factors together inevitably lead to a tightening of the conditions for access to statutory pensions and to early retirement, as recent government measures in this area confirm.

While Mexico’s principal mandatory pension system began as a Defined Benefit (DB) program in 1973, in 1997 it was changed to a Defined Contribution (DC) plan, with individual accounts managed by financial institutions such as banks and insurance companies. This DC system is still open to new members, while the DB pension one is closed.

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. Some seemingly minor changes in the U.S. regulatory landscape may go a long way in explaining the renewed interest in employee benefits captives – but read on: Peter

Human-resources startup Zenefits may be falling short of its revenue targets and has apparently started to curb expenses, as it struggles to meet investor expectations. Zenefits had announced a target of USD 100m in annualized revenues to be reached by January 2016 but may fall short as August 2015 actuals are understood to be slightly under USD 45m, still a large increase compared to USD 20m in January 2015.

According to traditional financial theory, a firm’s value is a function of its existing net worth and of its future profits. The way in which stock markets value large, traditional, listed brokers appears to be consistent with this. The table below includes some of the largest brokerages / consulting firms in the world and was compiled on November 23, 2015. As of late November 2015, the five firms exhibit

Signaling an increased commitment to the global employee benefits industry, global insurance powerhouses MetLife and AXA in late October 2015 announced they will combine their existing MAXIS Global Benefits Network (MAXIS GBN) operations in a new co-owned joint venture company based in London. Mauro Dugulin, formerly CEO of Generali Employee Benefits Network (GEB), will serve as CEO. MAXIS has been headquartered in Paris and New York since its inception

The 1,500-participant, sold-out event in the Bataclan concert hall was sponsored by music production firm Universal Music Group, a division of Vivendi Universal, who had invited a large number of guests, mainly managers and executives from the advertising, media, music, and broadcasting industries. As soon as Saturday, November 14, most large French brokers and TPAs had set up rapid-response teams and call centers, providing psychological and other support to

In response to questions asked by several GBV subscribers and readers, our three team members who are based in Paris were not harmed in any of the November 13 terrorist attacks in Paris and its outskirts. While some had family members at the Stade de France soccer stadium, luckily none were injured in the bombings there. Sadly, Marc Signorel, CEO of our web agency OuterRim, lost two close friends,

Click here if your browser will not go into full-screen mode This content requires a subscription or a purchase. Please login below or subscribe here.

Global Benefits Vision publishes in-depth articles written by global employee benefits experts for global employee benefits practitioners and is happy to welcome your contributions. Get in touch with the publisher at eric.muller-borle@global-benefits-vision.com. From the Contributor Guidelines Our mission at Global Benefits Vision is to make the accumulated knowledge and wisdom of the best experts available to all practitioners in an appealing, memorable way. Reading, learning, reflecting—and writing—are important parts

Zurich presented the “Zurich International Programs for Employees” at the October 2015 biannual meeting of the Federation of European Risk Management Associations (FERMA). The new product, to be launched in 2016, allows multinationals to manage their employee benefits coverages through a single global program, combining local policies with cross-border policies; as well as providing centralized data and reports. From a marketing standpoint, the new product is aimed squarely at

AXA Group’s AXA PPP healthcare unit in the UK in August 2015 launched its “Corporate Health Plan for Mid Corporates”, geared towards small-to-midsize businesses (SMBs) from 65 to 250 employees, that provides access to medical diagnosis and to approved treatments and drugs to get employees back to health and back to work quickly. Features usually reserved for larger groups include networks of quality-assessed healthcare providers: over 250 hospitals, 400