Crises may help in battle for talent

Dutch risk and insurance management association Narim is working hard to make the profession more appealing to a wider and more diverse pool of talent in an era during which corporations of all shapes and sizes are struggling to find talented young blood. The crowd at the Narim congress does appear to be younger and more diverse than others in Europe. Well done to Narim.

For example, Narim received an ‘anniversary present’ from Aon in 2021, consisting of a young Risk Manager Scholarship for three candidates for three years.

This year, this scholarship was won by Bonny Lepidis, insurance manager at housing associations Havensteder & Trivire. The prize was handed over at the Narim Congress in Utrecht.

While the risk and insurance profession may still not be first choice for most young people, participants in this year’s Risk Frontiers Europe survey from the Netherlands believe that the recent crises have raised the profile of the function and made it more appealing.

The participants agreed that the risk and insurance management community has evolved rapidly in recent times. They said the risk profession has risen up the corporate agenda in terms of profile, influence and significance, as Dutch corporations have had to deal with the same crises that all others have faced over the last few years.

At the same time, the Dutch risk and insurance management community is also facing the same challenges as other professions in attracting and retaining the best talent.

But the higher profile on the back of Covid-19, the war in Ukraine and, more recently, the rise of ESG as a core business driver, has also made the job more attractive, agreed the leading Ditch risk managers.

Marc Heiligers, director of insurance at AkzoNobel, the Amsterdam-based multinational that creates paints and performance coatings, said that virtually no-one chooses to be an insurance manager, but rather the job chooses them. He also believes the profession is becoming more appealing.

“You don’t aim to start up in insurance, you end up in the role. But I believe insurance manager is the best insurance job you can get because it is also about risk and technology and the like, all the key elements of the company. In my view this is a more attractive career than working for an insurer or broker, it is more diverse,” said Heiligers.

Annemarie Schouw, manager of risk and insurance at Tata Steel Nederland, and a former president of Narim, agreed with her colleague that the ever-evolving nature of risks faced by business is one of the reasons why the job is becoming more attractive.

“As an insurance manager you are doing your job well if you are a spider in the web. You have to understand what makes the company tick. You don’t have to be an expert in everything but you need to be in contact with all parts of the business and that makes it interesting,” she said.

The survey participants agreed that the rise of dedicated risk management and related standards is also driving change within the profession.

There are now two university standard risk management courses in the Netherlands and Narim is investigating a further course with the Dutch association of insurers and brokers.

Jeroen Gruter, corporate insurance manager at Rotterdam-based financial services group TBI Holdings, added that this development enables younger people entering the risk management profession to learn important techniques.

But he and Schouw agreed that because each company is different in what they do and how they do it, there is no real replacement for learning on the job.

“You do need life experience to oversee everything. And it is useful to have a technical background such as the law, engineering and the like. You need the base,” pointed out Schouw.

The risk managers added that a good technical base is useful, particularly if it is technology and data related.

Bonny Lepidis, insurance manager at housing associations Havensteder & Trivire, said that she had partially learned her role and the “language of insurance” via in-house education. She is now helping and educating colleagues about the use and value of insurance.

“To start with it was about knowledge and now it is more about skills, using and adapting data and making sure that the insurance programme is adequate,” she said.