Risk management role evolving positively in the Netherlands: Narim

The Dutch risk management association Narim is attracting growing interest from younger risk managers as it continues to evolve from its core insurance management supporting function.

More experienced Narim members whose traditional role was previously focused on insurance management are also finding that they are increasingly involved in broader business risk matters, a development that they accept with open arms.

Narim holds its annual conference today in The Hague and expects many younger risk professionals with broader risk management responsibilities and interests than the traditional Narim insurance management membership to attend.

This evolution in membership matches similar trends across Europe at other Ferma member associations. It also parallels the evolution of the corporate insurance sector as it changes to meet customer needs.

Narim’s leadership has worked hard in recent years, particularly under current president Annemarie Schouw, to extend the association’s remit beyond its historic insurance management focus.

The rise of risk management up the corporate agenda in the Netherlands, along with the rest of Europe following the credit crisis of 2008, has helped to support this effort.

Cyber risk is currently a hot topic in the Netherlands and Europe following the recent worldwide ransomware attacks. This is also helping to raise the profile of the profession as senior managers wake up to the threat, and seek ways to more effectively prevent and manage this critical risk.

During a roundtable discussion held this week with Narim committee members as part of Commercial Risk Europe’s annual Risk Frontiers survey, it was clear that experienced risk and insurance management professionals, who were previously focused on insurance, are extending their traditional role.

“I now do more risk management rather than insurance management and I think that, as a whole, the profession is changing. We are finding that newer, younger members of Narim are more risk managers than insurance managers. They are joining us from a risk perspective not just insurance. I think the profession is becoming more professional and will stand on its own feet as a result,” said Ms Schouw.

Jeroen van den Boogaard, senior insurance risk manager EMEA at US-based investment group CBRE Global Investors, agreed.

He said: “Ten to fifteen years ago I focused purely on insurance buying. Now I am advising more on investment decisions and capital expenditure decisions. The role is evolving.”

The Narim committee members are all experienced professionals and, inevitably, will take a broader role as senior management value the advice they can provide on more than simple insurance buying matters.

As Adri van der Waart, head of Arcadis Insurance Management, pointed out, the evolution of the wider corporate risk environment is also driving an expansion of their role in the Netherlands and across Europe.

“This change is also coming from the changing risk environment. Our role has become more strategic than ten to fifteen years ago. My company has a much broader range of issues to deal with than in the past when I was simply an insurance manager. The company has grown and is global and the risk profile is totally different now. This demands a different, more strategic form of management,” he said.

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