Sirm working overtime to deliver on range of fronts

Sirm is turning its attention to education, new events, pushing into the Swiss regions, reaching out to insurance market partners and, potentially, driving more collaboration between European risk management associations, in a bid to ultimately help members develop their skillsets and promote the profession. The Swiss association of insurance and risk managers (Sirm) is run by its board members without any fulltime staff. So as demands on the association grow, it took the big decision this month to increase the size of its board from six to nine members. The goal is to ensure Sirm can continue to expand its activities and deliver for Swiss risk managers. And when you look at what is on the association’s agenda this year and into 2025, you can see why those extra pairs of hands are needed. Sirm planned and delivered the first ever Geneva Rendez-Vous in June after careful planning for much of the year. The Rendez-Vous will become an annual event and help bring Sirm to Switzerland’s French-speaking Romandie region. The association is also intensifying collaboration with its insurance and broker partners. For the first time, each partner will this year host a dedicated event or activity exclusively for Sirm members. “This gives one-on-one time with each partner on specific topics and is free of charge for members. But the content is drafted with the partner and the Sirm board. So the events will be designed for risk managers with our input,” Sirm president Sabrina Hartusch told Commercial Risk. Sirm is also continuing the work carried out through its practice groups, which come together to share experience and knowledge on specific topics or issues. “It is now really in our DNA to have members gathering to share experience on a topic such as claims, captives, employee benefits and so on,” said Hartusch. And the association is currently planning for this year’s flagship Sirm Forum, which will be held in Berne in November. The focus will be AI. As usual, the forum will deliver social and networking opportunities alongside technical sessions. “In 2025 we will then repeat all this. That sounds trivial but will remain a lot of work for our board. And next year we will also strengthen all our regional groups – the Swiss German part, the French-speaking part and the Italian-speaking part. We can also now have a couple of members from Austria after a change to our statute. But this is more of a long-term project to see how it progresses. We will also be looking to further strengthen our collaboration with partners in a way that really helps our members. There are things in the pipeline on this,” explained Hartusch. Education is another increasing focus for Sirm. It is looking how best to develop this important area, with Ferma’s Rimap certification scheme one possible option. In fact, Hartusch explained that Sirm is looking into whether it should bring Rimap to Switzerland and, if so, how this should be done. “There is a working group in place that is analysing that at the moment. We are seeing if that makes sense for Sirm and our members, because of course there are other standards we could use,” she said. Developments on this front would help Sirm deliver on what Hartusch sees as its raison d’etre – delivering technical risk management expertise in Switzerland and promoting the function within organisations. “Our members are hungry for technical content to help them improve their work and prove their worth. In the end, we are here to support the members to do their job with technical content,” she said. “Then there is the evergreen topic of promoting the profession towards the c-suite. We know why risk management is important but we need to make that message loud and clear. That is why we are reaching out to collaborate with various association across Europe such as the CFO association or the bankers’ association to have a direct impact,” she added. Sirm has historically been close to Ferma, and Hartusch believes this relationship continues to work well. But she thinks there is real potential to boost collaboration between sister associations across Europe to share knowledge on a range of topics and develop further value for members. “This happens occasionally but it is not systematic. So there is a lot of untouched turf in terms of how sister associations could share information. It is easy for Sirm to reach out to the Italian association and ask for specifics on the Italian insurance market, for example. And they could do the same to us. We can help each on particular local market standards or market practice. This sort of information could easily be better shared and made available. And the same could happen in Spain or Greece, and so on,” said Hartusch. All of the work carried out by Sirm and its growing number of important initiatives aim to bring the Swiss risk and insurance management community together as one under a single, nationwide association. Hartusch thinks this is important and a “big positive” as opposed to having smaller, regional groups that would, potentially, struggle to add as much value. “Sirm stands for the entire country. You see that other Swiss associations, even in the insurance industry, have different associations in different regions. There are economies of scale and the topics are often the same, so we don’t think that works as well. We want to ensure that risk managers from across Switzerland can come together as one and that we can bring expertise from across the country to work for them,” concluded the ever-impressive Hartusch.

Sirm working overtime to deliver on range of fronts

Education and collaboration with sister risk management associations in focus

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