CEO Corner – Spring 2017

Welcome to the Spring edition of RiskeBusiness.  Spring traditionally being a period of renewal and rejuvenation – we started our Spring rejuvenation a few weeks early this year holding the ALUCA strategic planning day in Melbourne in mid August. This was a time for ALUCA’s board and sub-group chairs to reflect on our progress with ALUCA’s 2020 strategy. It was also an opportunity to ensure our continued alignment to deliver to ALUCA’s key strategic priorities and ensure we are meeting our members and partners needs.

A key project high on our strategic priorities is ALUCA’s Life Insurance Underwriting, Claims & Rehabilitation competency framework (the ALUCA competency framework). I’m delighted to share we have just completed the industry consultation phase and are now working to consolidate and update the document which will then be released and available to members in the next few months. Thank you to everyone for your feedback and to the executive  leaders who took time out of their busy schedules to join us for a series of lunches held in Sydney and Melbourne in August where we tabled and discussed the framework as well as ALUCA’s Rehab group who also provided some great feedback to the rehabilitation aspects of the framework. You can read more about this project in the article I have written in this edition of ReB to provide more background and context for the project.

Linked to this project is ALUCA’s accreditation and CPD program. We are currently working our way through the alignment of the different technical and business competencies from emerging, core, advanced and expert to our different membership and accreditation levels. This will also be released to members along with the competency framework and will supersede the existing accreditation. We’re really excited about both of these projects and know from the research that this is something that both members and partners really value and wanted.

It was a real pleasure interviewing two leading Managing Directors for this edition. I immensely enjoyed both. The first was with Mark Senkevics, SwissRe’s Managing Director and Head of Australia & New Zealand. SwissRe are a very valued platinum partner and support of ALUCA’s and I was really moved by Marks’s passion for the industry, people and customers, his humility and infectious enthusiasm. His parting words of advice really resonated   “We all work in a fantastic industry that is a big part of the fabric of society – we all need to make sure we maintain our strong focus on customer outcomes.”

This was also true of the interview with GenRe’s Managing Director, Andres Webersinke, another very valued sponsor and supporter of ALUCA’s. He shared his thoughts and reasons for writing an informative article on suicide which he kindly let us use to support R U OK day. Suicide is a global issue that tragically is the biggest killer of younger Australians. As an industry there is a lot we can do and as Andres said  “Life insurers play an important role protecting the financial health of a family also in case of a suicide but we have to think more about the role life insurers can play in protecting the life itself and preventing early death.”

On that important note we will be exploring mental health and other issues at ALUCA’s VIC Miniluca event on October 12th and in NSW’s Professional Development Day on October 17th. We will also be exploring this and so much more at next years ALUCA’s biennial conference in Hobart from Oct 11th – 13th. If you’d like to win a place to ALUCA’s biennial conference next year with a travel and accommodation package included make sure you follow us on social media – Facebook, twitter and Linkedin and enter the competition.

Thanks again to all of our dedicated volunteers, members, partners and supporters for your ongoing support of ALUCA. It’s been another great quarter.

All the very best,

Amanda McKernan
ALUCA CEO
ceo@aluca.com.au
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