Objectives

The course is modelled on the current demands on middle and upper management. The primary objectives include the following: 

• Comprehensive description of how an insurance company works
• Correlation of current insurance expertise and modern management combining both research and practice
• Demonstration and understanding examples of international best-practice (inside and outside the insurance sector) and derivation of central consequences
• Communication of forward-looking management concepts for the insurance industry (Operational excellence, financial risk management, new business models, risk selection, innovation management, etc.)
• Exchange of experience in the area of leadership
• Establishment of international networks to ensure the long-term intensification of the knowledge transfer and the exchange of experience

Overview of contents

The HSG Executive Diploma Programme in Insurance Management aims to give higher management an in-depth insight into the drive behind current factors and their effects on the way an insurance company functions. To do so the course is divided into five modules:

Module 1: Strategic management in the insurance industry

• Strategic positioning at the Business Unit level
• Marketing and competitive strategies of an insurance company
• Development of the risk landscape and the consequences for the insurance industry
• Strategic creation of value in the FDL industry

Module 2: Creation of customer value and strengthening of the customer relationship

• From the customer function to the innovative market performance strategy
• Customer value versus customer equity
• Managing the customer relationship
• From strategic marketing to customised distribution management

Module 3: Process optimisation in the insurance industry

• Business process architecture in the insurance industry
• Process optimisation: conceptual models and tools
• Industrialisation in the insurance industry
• Distribution and claims management: Key processes in the insurance industry

Module 4: Value-based-management of insurance companies 

• Financial management of an insurance company
• New challenges resulting from Solvency II and IFRS 4
• Integrated controlling and betterment through asset-liability management
• Betterment through integrated risk management

Module 5: Excursion to a foreign insurance market

• Structure, characteristics and trends of a foreign insurance market
• Strategic and challenges of specific companies
• Selected social, political or cultural developments
• Analysing local Best Practices

Module 6: Insurance in business and society

• 'The Big Picture' – Functions of insurance in tomorrow’s environment
• Corporate culture: Comparative study of the developments in the insurance industry
• From risk management to risk dialogue
• Actively shaping and consolidating organisational change

Faculty 

• Prof. Dr. Walter Ackermann
• Prof. Dr. Martin Eling
• Prof. Dr. Hato Schmeiser
• Prof. Dr. Peter Maas
• Dr. Mathias Müller
• Dr. Marco Allenspach

The target groups

• Executives (Line and Support) with the potential to take on managerial function with considerable responsibility with the space of only a few years (Senior heads of department, management board members/members of the executive)
• The course is limited to 30 participants
• Average age: 40
• The participants will apply a topic area of the course to a specific problem or area of responsibility within their company. This accompanied project will constitute their final paper