Within the Luxembourg life insurance sector, two trends are taking shape that are impacting not only the way insurance companies interact with partners and clients, but also the products and services they offer. The first trend, linked to clients’ expectations, is innovation, which must be supported by the entire Luxembourg ecosystem. With a little hindsight, we can say that “the first wave of innovation we experienced dates back to the 1990s, and concerned the regulatory aspect. The second took place in the 2000s and enabled insurance companies to adapt their wealth management solutions. In the 2010s, these same companies sought to improve their efficiency. We were talking about operational innovation. Finally, in the 2020s, innovation has taken on a technological and digital dimension,” explains Luc Rasschaert, CEO of WEALINS. These innovations must now be continued and accelerated to help Luxembourg’s financial centre stand out in the face of competition from other European countries. For example, some of the proposed changes to the law are likely to have an impact on the rules governing professional secrecy. Accordingly, the use of the cloud should multiply the oppor­tunities available to the life insurance and wealth management sector.

Focus on a client-centric approach

This innovation is all the more necessary as it enables us to meet the expectations of wealthy clients. Both the younger generation and some older policyholders now want solutions that meet their specific needs. “We’re talking about a personalised, tailor-made approach. They also want greater responsiveness and flexibility in accessing and exchanging information. For a company like WEALINS, it’s important to be resilient, to adapt quickly to innovation, to the use of new technologies, and to adopt the ATAWAD (anytime, anywhere, any device) concept. We call our unique approach ‘Wealth Insurance as a Service’. This encompasses both the products and the services we offer our partners and clients, including our expertise and know-how in wealth management and structuring, and our digital offering.”

With this in mind, the company has wiped the slate clean of its multiple IT systems to offer a single digital platform (e-Wealins) to its partners and their clients. It offers a number of advantages, including responsiveness, efficiency and reliability in data management. For example, it also gives the broker the opportunity to answer a client’s questions, or to obtain information about his or her insurance policy. The platform is constantly evolving to meet the current and future needs of WEALINS’ partners and clients.  

Combining positive impact and financial performance

Several studies have offered the evidence that the sustainable finance regulatory framework has been developed at such a rapid pace that much of the industry is still pondering on the most relevant implications and their impacts on their business models. One of the latest survey in this respect, published by Oxford Risk¹, has in fact shown that only 13% of asset managers, who are the main partners of insurance companies, really understand these ESG laws and requirements. “They are at a loss as to how to integrate the impacts into their work and communicating them clearly to their clients. All these considerations need to be understood, translated, and transposed into investment products,” comments Flavia Micilotta, ESG Investment Specialist.

Another challenge concerns the demands of regulators. These require asset managers to ask clients about their sustainability preferences. Although over 90% of them (always according to the Oxford Risk report1) consider this “mapping”  to be the most important part of their work, the time devoted to it remains limited.

The ESG movement has become more than just a trend. “More and more families want to make a commitment to ESG when it comes to their investments, especially the younger generation. Managing the evolution of clients’ preferences, which sometimes differ within the same family, is particularly complex for managers.”

Convinced that the integration of ESG criteria and financial performance can go hand in hand, WEALINS takes a close interest in this subject, which influences the way we develop products, reach clients, and interact with partners. The company intends to be a valuable support for partners. “We want to act as a facilitator and help them improve their knowledge of legislation to make it easier to understand sustainable finance and their clients’ preferences, and integrate them into their policy. We help them assimilate this information and meet the expectations of clients and regulators, we offer them trainings through our webinars and other presentations. Our e-Wealins platform also makes it easier for our partners to capture clients’ sustainability preferences.” 

Once again, WEALINS has a leading role to play. “We want to be useful and support our partners as they face the challenges ahead. We are working in an increasingly complex environment, which is why data management, knowledge sharing, and wealth support will be more than ever necessary,” concludes Luc Rasschaert.  

¹Source of the survey :