New events ahead for the Financial Services SIG

Jordane is Head of Group Corporate Sustainability Risk Management and Risk Transfer at the London Stock Exchange Group (LSEG). One of the most famous names in the financial world, LSEG is today a multi asset class financial market infrastructure and data provider thanks to its takeover of Refinitiv, completed a year ago. As a result of the takeover, Jordane found herself with risk responsibilities for a group with about 25,000 employees – not 5,000 as before.

Having studied law in Paris but realising she didn’t want to become a lawyer, Jordane was drawn to insurance. “It’s contract based.” She then did a post-graduate degree in insurance and risk. An internship with Aon in the UK led to a job offer and, 20 years later, she is still in the UK, having worked at Barclays Capital and AIG. She joined LSEG in June 2018.  

Today, her responsibilities don’t just cover insurance. She hadn’t long been in the new job when she was asked to include sustainability and sustainability risk in her responsibilities. “It was a bit of a learning curve but exciting. I was one of the very first insurance risk managers to have this in their remit.” She brings this aspect of her work to Airmic’s financial SIG.

Meetings 2022

First on the list of the SIG meetings for 2022 on 15 February is a focus on a sustainability topic in partnership with Marsh. Getting disclosures right is increasingly important, including from a D&O perspective, Jordane explains.

Insurers have two perspectives here: their own sustainability policies and disclosures, and those of the businesses they insure. “Insurers are considering what is going to be relevant for their underwriting, especially with smaller companies starting their sustainability journey,” Jordane comments.

An aspect of the sustainability discussion that is particularly relevant for members of the SIG is the pressure on insurers and other financial institutions if they are believed to be “facilitating” the operations of fossil fuel companies. They may want to show that they are supporting such businesses in their transition to low carbon operations and products.

In June, the SIG will discuss cyber claims. Financial institutions tend to believe in the strength of their systems, Jordane says, but they can be high-level targets. With an insurer Airmic partner, the group will look at a selected cyber incident scenario and how this might affect different insurance exposures, such as D&O.

The third meeting of the year may be back to cyber, perhaps not surprisingly, but this time with the aim of quantifying the cost of cyber-attacks. This could be useful information for discussions with insurers when cyber policies come up for renewal.

Jordane’s aim with the SIG is to find topics that provide useful material for her peers in other financial institutions. Airmic staff members Alex Frost and Leigh-Anne Slade play a big part in making it successful.