Amrae forges ahead with new branches in Brittany and Hauts-de-France
French risk and insurance management association Amrae has continued its regional growth by opening new branches in Brittany and the Hauts-de-France region, France’s traditional industrial heartland to the north-east of Paris and on the border with Belgium.
Most recently, the new Brittany branch was formally launched at a meeting of Amrae members in the regional capital Rennes.
The new group is led by Sylvie Guichaoua, group risk and insurance director at construction, real estate and energy group Legendre. The new branch includes the departments of Côtes d’Armor, Finistère, Ille-et-Vilaine and Loire-Atlantic and Morbihan.
Marie-Élise Lorin, administrator at Amrae responsible for running the regional branches, was joined by Hélène Dubillot, director of Amrae’s scientific center and the development of its regions, and Xavier Migeot, general director of employer federation Medef, Ille-et-Vilaine, to host the launch event. It was attended by around 20 regional risk managers from the agri-food, automotive, construction, expertise, brokerage and insurance sectors.
Amrae vice-president François Beaume and treasurer Alain Ronot revealed by videoconference the major trends to watch out for in the 2024 business insurance market ahead of a formal presentation in three weeks.
Yann Vales, key account director at broker Verlingue, also presented to members and said that, faced with ongoing tensions in the insurance market, only solid risk management can successfully obtain insurance under acceptable conditions. The wood, waste and agri-food sectors – important sectors in the Breton economy – are still experiencing great difficulties in financing their risks, said Vales.
“Risk management concerns companies of all sizes, from family SMEs to large groups, listed and unlisted,” said Guichaoua.
“It involves preventing material and immaterial risks, organising crisis management and continuity plans and financing, in particular through insurance, the economic consequences of disasters that may occur. Many people therefore have to manage these often complex questions alone. Here they will find the sharing of experience, peer advice and technical expertise that will help them in their profession,” she added, explaining why a regional group has an important role to play for risk managers.
“This new Breton branch illustrates the strength of the collaboration between Medef at the national level and the regional Medef groups and Amrae,” said Migeot and Lorin.
“Shared knowledge on the culture of risk management, co-production of macartodesriques.fr, the free and anonymous web application to conduct risk mapping, we are working together to make the economic fabric ever more resilient,” they added.
The first meeting of the new Hauts-de-France branch of Amrae took place in Lille on 20 September.
The meeting was chaired by Oliver Wild, president of Amrae and director of risks and insurance of Veolia. It was hosted by François Leduc, deputy general manager of Verspieren in the region.
Camel Sekkai, legal director of car parts and accessories group Mobivia, and Thibaud Dufossé, risk and insurance director of glassware group Arc France, led the meeting. It brought together regional risk managers, lawyers specialising in industrial risks, representatives of the Lille metropolis, or the Hauts-de-France cybercampus, as well as the director of business school ESC Amiens.
The new northern Amrae branch will first focus on the difficulty of attracting skills to the territory outside the Lille metropolitan area, cyber risk and its insurability, daily ESG issues, the effects of inflation on industrial insurance and geopolitical developments for export and import companies.
“Amrae held its 24th Rencontres in Lille in 2016… attended by more than 2,500 delegates including more than 100 local officials. With this new branch, risk management finds a new foundation to support the profession, the function and the risk managers that participate in the dissemination of the risk culture,” said Wild.
