Honisch heads running for DVS president

The DVS has yet to announce a replacement for Stefan Sigulla, who announced his decision to leave his job as insurance head at engineering and electronics giant Siemens to cross the divide and join the main board of HDI-Gerling Industrie during the association’s recent annual conference in Munich early last month. Mr Sigulla, who only took on another three year term in charge of the DVS at its annual general meeting in June, will start in Hannover on January 1. and will replace Rolf Aßhoff who is to retire. Tongues started wagging in Munich when Mr Sigulla formally announced his move during his opening remarks on the second day of the conference. But none of the association board members were willing to throw their hats into the ring when asked by Commercial Risk Europe whether they would be willing to take on the role. hideMr Sigulla’s departure marks a period of significant change for the DVS. CEO Günter Schlicht has only just stepped down from his long-standing position to enter semi-retirement he has been with the association since 1987, and will be replaced by Dr. Phillip Andrae who has worked for the DVS since 1999. Delegates at the DVS told CRE that Mr Honisch would be a good choice for the President’s role. Mr Honisch is believed to be interested in the role but would have to obtain clearance for the extra responsibilities from his employer first and, given the still tough economic climate, that may prove more tricky than normal. Other candidates for the President would be fellow board members Dr. Peter Klatt of BMW, Günter Dröse of Deutsche Bank, Harry Daugird of ABB AG, Klaus Braukmann of Continental AG, Heike Hehr of K + S, Friedrich Schüßler of BASF and Klaus Greimel E.ON AG. Mr Dröse was mooted as a candidate to replace Mr Sigulla’s predecessor Ralf Oelssner when he retired. But since then he has created the European Captive Insurance and Reinsurance Owners Association [ECIROA], along with a number of the leading European captive owners, and it is unlikely he would be able to perform both roles. Though Mr Sigulla will be missed by the DVS membership some delegates pointed out that it was good news in a sense that one of Germnay’s biggest industrial insurance groups had chosen to appoint a high profile insurance manager to such a senior position. It is thought that HDI-Gerling’s parent Talanx hopes to use Mr Sigulla’s arrival as a way of upping its game with the bigger industrial customers in Germany just as Allianz Global Corporate and Specialty did at the end of 2008 when it named Thierry van Santen, risk manager at Danone and leading member of AMRAE and FERMA, and AXA Corporate Solutions did when it hired Franck Baron from Firmenich last year. Mr Sigulla, who will also step down from his role at FERMA, was with Siemens for 14 years. Before that he was deputy head of the legal department at Lurgi, an affiliate of the metal company where he was in charge of the insurance department. Mr Sigulla has ‘enjoyed’ a busy few years at Siemens as the Munich based group struggled to sort out a huge corruption scandal that was caused by bribes for contracts in Nigeria and Russia that broke in November 2006. The affair has only just recently been put to bed through the payment of huge fines in the US and Germany, court rulings and sackings of senior executives. As part of this process the group brought an insurance claim against a number of former managers who were involved in the corruption affair. Last year Mr Sigulla managed to broker an agreement with its D&O insurers. The group had taken out a !250m D&O policy for its executives that they at first refused to pay. In the end they agreed to pay €100m.

Honisch heads running for DVS president

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