Florence Bindelle

It has been an eventful two months for FERMA! A FERMA team attended RIMS conference in Denver in April. It was a great occasion for both President Julia Graham and me to meet our counterparts at RIMS and at global level. You will find my report also in this newsletter. In addition at RIMS, I attended a public affairs presentation and met with Nathan Bacchus RIMS Head of Government Affairs. As businesses are global and operate in a competitive environment, we might see issues on which we could capitalise and benefit by sharing actions led by our organisations that further support the profession. One issue we discussed was fear of the non-renewal at the end of 2014 of the Terrorism Risk Insurance Act (TRIA),under which the US government provides catastrophe level reinsurance in the event of a terrorist attack.

FERMA’s executive committee met in the beautiful northwestern Slovenia city of Bled following the joint SI Risk and ANRA event and later in Brussels. We identified priorities for FERMA’s work.

On 22 April, we launched the 2014 FERMA Benchmarking survey on and opened registration for the 2014 FERMA Seminar. Thanks to the great work of the team, we have had an excellent result from the start. In London, selected young risk managers attended the first session of the second FERMA Lloyd’s professional development programme. By all accounts, they appreciated it very much and are looking forward to the following two sessions.

Also in the education field, I presented at BELRIM’s meeting to launch a partnership with business schools and universities. A first meeting took place with Colin Tyler, CEO of the treasurers’ association ACT, where we discussed current projects and the importance of raising awareness. I also presented FERMA to the UN Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE) working group gathering of experts on risk management regulatory framework, which works on a framework on disaster risk reduction, climate change and poverty reduction at governmental level. A meeting with the European Commission audit service took place to prepare for the review of the guidance on the 8th Company Law Directive.