ASINTA seminar 2016: Gerep off to conquer the far west

The annual Asinta seminar was held from 10 to 14 May in San Francisco. This event brings together independent brokers from 56 countries every year and enables members of the network to strengthen their links, improve the products they offer abroad and anticipate developments in their profession. An ideal opportunity for Gerep to gather valuable information on employee benefits worldwide.

France was in everyone’s mind when it came to discussions on local practices.

The meeting was a deep dive into American culture and this was a splendid introduction to the main raison d’etre of the seminar: discussions on local practices and the monitoring of regulatory developments in different countries. With the entry into force on 1 January of this year, of the Law on the generalisation of complementary healthcare insurance, many people have been looking at France, and its particularly complex regulations. The main issues are: the minimum covers included in the ANI ‘basket of covers’ and the effect on those covers of choosing one collective bargaining agreement rather than another. The main challenge for the Asinta network is to systematise this type of discussions between members and their customers, in order to be able to accompany companies in their expansion abroad by ensuring a high level of consultancy quality and the best solutions for customers whatever the country.

The digital trend takes hold

The 4-day seminar consisted of a series of presentations and workshops. A whole morning was devoted to communication, giving interesting information on cultural differences but also on the emergence of online tools that that are changing the name of the game. In this area, Gerep was able to exchange views with its American and British partners on customer Extranet possibilities for checking on extent of cover and making requests online. Digitising is becoming a deep undercurrent in our business, a real opportunity for brokers to highlight their tailor-made products. This is even more important as mature markets are more and more regulated and therefore standardised, which means that it is customer service that makes the difference. This is the route that Gerep has taken, in particular with GPS, its programme of risk prevention and promotion of the quality of the workplace environment.