Insurance Development Forum names Swiss Re and Zurich veteran as new steering committee chair

The Insurance Development Forum (IDF) has chosen Michel Liès to succeed Axa’s Denis Duverne as chair of its steering committee.

The IDF is a resilience focused public-private partnership led by the insurance industry. Its members include the United Nations, World Bank and other international organisations.

Liès has more than 40 years of experience in the insurance industry, including serving as Swiss Re’s group chief executive between 2012 and 2016. He has also worked as chairman of Zurich Insurance since April 2018.

For Liès, a key priority for the IDF will be tackling the ”urgency of the climate crisis” by advocating the importance of risk management and insurance in supporting resilience development. This will require ”effective cross-sector collaboration” to ”deliver meaningful change”, he said.

He continued: “The IDF has made an outstanding policy and operational impact in recent years, delivering the first three country programmes under the Tripartite Agreement, as well as significant mobilisation of new resources in support of the climate and disaster risk financing agenda.

“This is due in no small part to the steering committee under the leadership of Denis Duverne and to the IDF’s working groups, our fast-growing membership and our partners and supporters.”

‘Systemic change’

The Tripartite Programme was launched at the UN Secretary General’s Climate Action Summit in September 2019 by the IDF, German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ) and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), with the aim of developing risk management solutions for climate vulnerable countries.

Liès said: “It is an honour and privilege to be asked to chair the IDF’s steering committee alongside co-chairs Achim Steiner and Hiroshi Matano and I would like to thank Denis for the outstanding contribution he has made in championing the work of the IDF.

“We are on a journey – including extending partnerships, accelerating our operational programmes and mobilising new resources in support of the climate and disaster risk financing agenda.

”I am confident that the IDF will remain a key institution for bringing about systemic change.”