Former FERMA president Marie-Gemma Dequae has been named to represent the interests of professional associations on the insurance and reinsurance stakeholder group for the European Insurance and Occupational Pensions Authority (EIOPA).

Marie-Gemma Dequae

Marie-Gemma says, “I look forward to exchanging views with colleagues at the stakeholder group and bringing risk management aspects into the proposed regulatory technical standards and their implementation. I will be discussing and defending the important needs of our members, as industrial buyers of insurance and reinsurance, and taking care of the influence of changing regulations on available insurance capacity and price for changing and emerging risks. “As FERMA members often have their own captive (re)insurance companies, the discussion on the Solvency II implementation will be followed with great care taking this captive aspect into consideration.”

President of FERMA from 2005 to 2009, Marie-Gemma remains closely involved with FERMA as scientific adviser. Her professional experience involved 23 years as group risk and insurance manager for the Belgian-based international materials production group Bekaert. She is now a board member of Belfius Bank and Belfius Insurance in Belgium.

Marie-Gemma has both an academic and practical background in risk management. She has a PhD in applied economics, and before going into industry, she taught economics and finance at the Catholic University of Leuven and at the business school Vlekho in Brussels. She maintains strong links with a number of European management schools in risk and governance.

EIOPA consults the stakeholder groups on actions concerning regulatory technical standards and their implementation as well as guidelines and recommendations that do not concern individual financial institutions.

Members of the stakeholder groups can submit opinions and advice to EIOPA on any issue related to its tasks. Additionally, the stakeholder groups are expected to notify EIOPA of inconsistent application of European Union law and inconsistent supervisory practices in the different European member states.