A sketch from Amrae, by Nathan Skinner
British faces are sometimes hard to find at the annual French risk management conference in Normandy.
Nevertheless, indicating a commitment to the French commercial insurance market Lloyd's of London rolled out the big guns.
On the first day of the event in the trendy resort of Deauville Lloyd's chairman Lord Levene delivered a keynote speech in pitch perfect French.
A conversation over cocktails later and it turns out he has a house nearby, which affords him plenty of time to brush up his language skills. After all, it's only a short flight from London by jet.
Amrae's Les Rencontres is the biggest risk management conference in Europe, closest in atmosphere perhaps to the fashionable Monte Carlo Reinsurance Rendevous.
Almost 2000 people attended this year's event in cloudy Deauville and Amrae hosted a party for most of the gathering at the Grand Casino on the seafront. You can see pictures from the evening here.
Each year at the conference Amrae announces its achievements from the previous 12 months, usually around new training initiatives or market practices.
This year the most interesting news came out of a risk management salary survey (Airmic is currently putting the finishing touches to one for UK risk managers).
According to the findings ERM professionals in France earn about twice as much as their insurance management colleagues. They can expect to take home annual salaries of about €120,000 compared with €60,000 for the average insurance buyer.
As we have done in previous years StrategicRISK published daily French language newsletters at Amrae's Les Rencontres.
A popular item is the risk management quiz. And one of the questions this year tripped up quite a few people.
We asked where the Monte Carlo method gets its name from? Most people think it's something to do with gambling and Monte Carlo casinos (as I did).
In fact it comes from a codename used by scientists working on the atomic bomb.
