Belgium

Every two years BELRIM invites its members to the Belgian evening following the opening cocktail of the FERMA Forum. This year, the event will take place at the National Museum in Stockholm on 2 October. Two weeks previously, on 15 September, there will be a dinner with the board at which BELRIM welcomes its new members.

BELRIM held its annual general assembly in June at the splendid venue of the Palais des Académies in Brussels.

New members elected to the board of BELRIM were Sabine Desantoine, Insurable Risks Manager ING BeLux and CWE at ING Belgium; Jo Willaert, Corporate Risk Manager at Agfa Corporate Centre; Enrique Flores, Insurance and Risk Manager at SWIFT and Jan Ravyts, Insurance, Ethics and Compliance Manager at Fluxys. Damien Dreumont of Solvay was chosen as Vice-President.

BELRIM will hold its traditional end-of-year cocktail on 1 December, and it has already scheduled discussions on construction all risks, credit management and social media risks in 2012. All BELRIM’s activities are published on www.belrim.com in English, Flemish and French.

Spain

AGERS has organised a course on complementary social welfare systems: life, pensions, health and accident and their financing, directed by D. Lázaro Villada, Professor at the Instituto Católico de Administración y Dirección de Empresas (ICADE). For more information see the AGERS website at www.agers.es or contact the association at formacion@agers.es.

Slovenia

The Slovenian Association for Risk and Insurance Management was expecting formal registration as the FERMA newsletter went to press. The association first met in September 2009. Meetings since then have covered business continuity plans for pandemic flu, captives and how and who should fund them, D&O insurance, environmental insurance under the EU directive, risks related to proposed changes in employment legislative and liabilities and insurance in the property investment process.

Although the group has been operating informally, it has started to work on two issues:

• Changes of Slovenian tax legislative in connection with D&O insurance
• Environmental issues: changes of Slovenian legislative and members‟ opinion on financial security

Currently, there are seven members: five individuals and two companies. Unofficially there will be around 15 members and the association is working on more.

The President is Maja Sustersic, Head of Section for Insurance at the oil and energy company, Petrol, based in Ljubljana.

Malta

Not yet a FERMA member, but hoping to become one, the Malta Association of Risk Management (MARM) was formally established on 30 August with the signing of its statute. A founding council, which met every fortnight in the crucial set up phase, is now planning a grand launch event to engage industry attention, raise awareness and attract new members.

The founder members established a LinkedIn page to spread awareness, identify potential new association members and encourage networking within the local risk management community: https://www.linkedin.com/groups/MARM-Malta-Association-Risk-Management-4037867

The founding council members are

• John Schembri (President) Managing Director at Shield Security Consultants
• Ian-Edward Stafrace (Vice President) Risk Analyst and International Business Development at Atlas Insurance PCC and Secretary of the Malta Insurance Institute
• Mario Genovese (Treasurer) Head of Risk Management at Air Malta
• Andre Farrugia (Secretary) Director of Studies at Malta International Training Centre
• John O’Dea (Public Relations Officer) Consultant at supermarket group Scotts
• Simon Grima (Council member) Lecturer at the University of Malta

One of the association’s main objectives is to promote, advance and encourage the knowledge and use of risk management within the private and public sectors in the Maltese Islands. It will do this partly by encouraging the development of local professional education in risk management.