Insurance industry must prepare for the challenges of the future

Sector must see off big data threat, warns senior fund manager

Moloney warns sector must keep in touch

What's your name?

Éimear Moloney

What position do you hold?

Senior Fund Manager, Zurich Life Assurance plc

How long have you held the position?

I have been in the Investment Department in Zurich since 2000, and held the position of Senior Fund Manager for the last 10 years.

What are your day to day responsibilities?

I am co-head of asset allocation decisions for our assets under management and am directly responsible for the regional equity selection. I also manage our Irish equity portfolio.

What is your professional background?

Having completed my primary degree in B.A Accounting and Finance I qualified as a Chartered Accountant in 1993. I joined Zurich Life Assurance in 1997 and having completed a Msc. Investments and Treasury from DCU in 2000 I moved into a front office role in the Investment Department.

Tell me about yourself away from work?

Outside work time most of my free time is spent with my family. I am also involved in a children’s charity which I thoroughly enjoy and do some amateur painting as my relaxing past-time.

Tell us something very few people know about you?

Before I became an accountant I wanted to be an optician!

You are speaking at the 2016 Future of Insurance conference. What is your talk about?

I am part of a panel discussion as an investment professional on picking an investment strategy in today’s highly regulated, low return and volatile market.

What challenges do you see for the insurance sector?

The main challenges I see for the sector include the technology and big data threat to more traditional business models, the need to improve customer focus and regulation.

Where would you like to see the industry in 10 years time?

I would like the industry to be more forward looking than reactive. The future will arrive whether the industry is ready or not. The actual predictions while important are not the key, it’s more about thinking about what may happen and how the industry would react and be aware of what we need to do today to prepare.

Moloney will be speaking at The Sunday Business Post Future of Insurance Summit on November 18 at The Gibson Hotel in Dublin. Seewww.futureofinsurance.ie for further details.