ACPR urges insurers to split roles of chairman and chief exec to improve governance

Written by Adam Cadle

16/07/2020

France’s financial regualtor L’Autorité de contrôle prudentiel et de résolution (ACPR) is urging the country’s largest insurers to split the roles of chairman and chief executive in order to improve governance and therefore reduce risks.

The ACPR said this would be a “good governance practice increasingly widespread in large companies” and should “become standard in listed companies and large insurance groups”.

Both Scor’s Denis Kessler and Covéa’s Thierry Derez hold both positions, and have faced questions about their influence over their organisations.

Scor has faced pressure for more than a year from CIAM, an activist investor, to split Kessler’s two roles. In a letter to the Scor board last month ahead of the company’s annual meeting, CIAM’s Catherine Berjal said: “The combination of the roles, which only Scor has maintained among SBF 120 financial companies and in the reinsurance sector, is an obsolete practice and carries risk.”

Mutually owned Covéa has faced questions from the ACPR itself about whether its governance model gives Derez too much power.

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