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

In late June 2015, GBV learned that AIG Benefit Solutions President and CEO Curt Olson was about to leave AIG. Only a few weeks earlier, Olson had led AIG’s comeback in the global employee benefits market, five years after the sale of the “old” AIG network along with other ALICO assets to MetLife. In late April 2015, AIG acquired a majority stake in ING’s ING Employee Benefits – Global

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.

LaLux insurance company has acquired a further 75% stake in health insurance carrier DKV Luxembourg which it nows wholly owns. LaLux will implement a full operational integration of DKV Luxembourg in the coming months. The second-largest domestic insurer in Luxembourg behind Le Foyer, LaLux is the AIG Global Benefits Network partner for Luxembourg and offers a full range of group life, health and pension benefits as well as other

Sören Schulze joined Allianz Global Benefits in June 2015 as Senior Network Mana­ger based in Munich. In his new position, he is responsible for the operatio­nal and day-to-day management of the network insurers within the Allianz Global Benefits network and reports to Dr. Reinhardt Schink, Head of Market Management. Sören Schulze started his professional career at Generali Emplo­yee Benefits in Frankfurt, Germany as an account executive. He continued his

David Myers was appointed head of Global Broker Life & Health Development in January 2015, based in Munich. In his new role he is responsible for strategic engagement with global brokers. He directly reports to Dirk Hellmuth, CEO and Head of Sales & Distribution of Allianz Global Benefits. Earlier, he was part of the Allianz Group broker distribution team where he has been for four years, the last two

Adam King was appointed Regional Director for the Americas in June 2015, based in Chicago. He is responsible for Employee Benefits sales and distribution to multinational companies in North and South America. In this role he directly reports to Dirk Hellmuth, CEO and Head of Sales & Distribution of Allianz Global Benefits. Before joining Allianz Global Benefits, he was with MetLife/Maxis and in charge of business development in the

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

Sheldon Kenton reports to Robert Lang, Managing Director for Bupa Global, and is a member of the Bupa Global executive team.  The newly created role of Global Commercial Director focuses on sales to corporate clients, on health benefits, as well as on institutional distribution partnerships. Kendon had been with Cigna since 1997, lastly as global head for sales of international employee benefits, and relocates from Philadelphia, PA. He holds

A prototype issue of Global Benefits Vision magazine is made available to you online three weeks ahead of the launch of the Inaugural Issue. Please note that most of the contents of the prototype issue is based on articles published elsewhere and rewritten for Global Benefits Vision. The real thing, beginning with the Inaugural Issue on September 9, 2015, will feature original, up-to-date material only.     This content

Payroll software and services provider ADP and the GoHealth Insurance platform that offers subsidized health insurance plans under the Affordable Care Act, have together launched a private health exchange that enables employers to assist both full-time employees and the contingent workforce, i.e. part-time, temporary and contract workers ineligible for employer-sponsored coverage, in selecting health plans. Apparently in an effort to leverage up-to-date, detailed employee data from its clients’ payrolls,

Eating a group of specific foods may slow cognitive decline among aging adults, even when the person is not at risk of developing Alzheimer’s disease, according to researchers at Rush University Medical Center, in a study recently published online in the journal Alzheimer’s & Dementia: The Journal of the Alzheimer’s Association. The MIND diet, which is short for “Mediterranean-DASH Diet Intervention for Neurodegenerative Delay,” is a hybrid of the Mediterranean

The team at Global Benefits Vision is proud to announce its website, live since July 31, 2015 at www.global-benefits-vision.com ! Thanks to the great work done by Marc at OuterRim and by Yazid at GBV, Global Benefits Vision is online one month ahead of the launch of the magazine. What is available now Read news in the free, public section of www.global-benefits-vision.com Try out the magazine reader application (placeholder “magazines”

Human beings are living longer than ever, which can be a wonderful thing. As the T-shirts say, life is good. But human longevity has big consequences for society, which is one reason President Obama is hosting today’s White House Conference on Aging. It’s great that we can get new hips when our old ones wear out, but someone has to pay for them. It’s great that Baby Boomers will

Aging reduces the production of new immune cells, decreasing the immune system’s response to vaccines and putting the elderly at risk of infection, but antioxidants in the diet may slow this damaging process. That’s a new finding by scientists from the Scripps Research Institute in Florida, published in an open-access paper in the journal Cell Reports. The problem is focused on an organ called the thymus, which produces T lymphocytes

As of June 2015, Candriam – BIL Pension Fund is still the Luxembourg representative at AEIP (Association Européenne des Institutions Paritaires, or European Association of Paritarian Institutions), even after its former owner, leading Luxembourg bank Banque Internationale à Luxembourg (BIL) separated from Dexia group and was acquired by Precision Capital of Qatar and Candriam was sold in February 2014 to New York Life Insurance Company, the largest U.S. mutual

Prime factors for a higher probability of reaching age 100+ are long telomere length and low inflammation. Newcastle University’s Institute for Ageing in the UK and Keio University School of Medicine in Japan note that severe inflammation is part of many diseases in the old, such as diabetes or diseases attacking the bones or the body’s joints, and chronic inflammation can develop from any of them. The study was