in Zurich, according to Andreas Molck-Ude, chief executive officer and managing director at New Re.
“As a Geneva-based company, we already enjoyed many of the Swiss
benefits which companies would normally be looking for, such as tax and regulation, but we also had one huge disadvantage, which was that we were the only reinsurer in Geneva,” he says.
“This meant that any new employee would have to move to Geneva—
they couldn’t possibly already be resident there, because there were no other reinsurers.”
This meant that it took a long time to acquire new staff after existing
staff had left or retired, and it was also extremely difficult to get the best staff, because of these hindrances, argues Molck-Ude.
“The European model, which is how we run our Zurich office,
centres on much more travelling around to meet the clients and, although the brokers are still involved, it is much more about going out with them to meet the client face to face. A lot of business comes to Zurich in that way.”
“Because we wanted to develop the company, and move into more
specialised areas of reinsurance, we simply needed access to a reinsurance labour market which offered all the skills we needed.
“The solution was very simple: it could only be Zurich. We wanted to
stay in Switzerland, and the availability and the accessibility of a skilled labour market of reinsurance experts for us was the core reason of moving,” he says.
But while Zurich’s growing status as a reinsurance hub means that it is
now home to a healthy number of reinsurance experts, the city also offers social and economic conditions that help nurture the large pool of talent available, argues Stephan Geiger, head of Guy Carpenter’s operations in Switzerland.
“The education system in Switzerland is of an extremely high standard
and produces sufficient numbers of highly qualified financial services experts to ably support the sector,” he says. “Furthermore, the majority of Swiss people are multilingual. There are three principal languages spoken in Switzerland: German, French and Italian.”
Regazzoni agrees, saying that the availability of talent is a key
component in running a successful company. “Zurich has an attractive talent potential, which is very important in our business, so that you get the right underwriters,” he says.
Additionally, the cultural fit that Zurich has with many of its neighbours
is also a key aspect of its attractiveness as a reinsurance hub, says Geiger. “Continental European reinsurance buyers usually look to establish
long-term, continuous relationships with their reinsurer and often prefer to be served by someone capable
language,” he says. “Reinsurers domiciled in Zurich tend to meet these criteria since most of their staff have the same cultural background as their clients.”
Along with the many advantages that Zurich’s geographical location
offers, the city also benefits from having a highly sophisticated integrated transport system and an airport that provides access for executives to a number of international destinations.
24 | INTELLIGENT INSURER | October 2011 of speaking their own
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