Hans-Georg Jenssen, who retired as managing director of the Federal Association of German Insurance Brokers at the end of 2022, has a new job: the well-connected expert on sales and regulation will in future advise the broker group GGW under the leadership of Tobias Warweg. There are also personnel changes at VGH Versicherungen, the digital insurer Neodigital, MLP SE, the broker pool Fonds Finanz, and bbg Betriebsberatungs GmbH, which is behind the intermediary trade fair DKM and the financial magazine Asscompact.
© BDVM
GGW Group – Hans-Georg Jenssen, managing director of the Federal Association of German Insurance Brokers (BDVM) until the end of 2022, can’t quite leave work alone. Actually, the 66-year-old wanted to enjoy life after his retirement, taking a number of motorcycle tours with his wife.
But now Jenssen has signed on as a consultant with broker GGW Group, led by Tobias Warweg. Over the past three years, Warweg has built a significant brokerage group through more than 30 acquisitions in Germany and abroad, employing more than 1,500 people and managing insurance premiums of more than 1 billion euros. GGW Group is financed by funds of the London-based private equity investor HG Capital.
The attorney, who holds a doctorate in law, will advise GGW on various committees, the broker announced. In his 20 years on the BDVM board, Jenssen has left a clear mark on the industry. GGW apparently intends to benefit from Jenssen’s exceptional knowledge of regulatory as well as legal sales issues. Jenssen is a high-profile interlocutor and expert in the industry and among politicians and officials in Brussels and Berlin.
Warweg called him an “important advisor and companion.” Jenssen said in a statement that many of the people acting within GGW Group have been well known to him for years. “I’ve been following the group’s development with great respect and interest since the beginning.”
A Hamburg native by conviction, Jenssen began his career at the law firm Segelken & Suchopar. He then moved to Hamburg-Mannheimer, now Ergo, and became department head in the legal department and later main department head in human resources and social affairs. In 2001, he joined the Association of German Insurance Brokers, now the Federal Association of German Insurance Brokers, as Managing Director.
VGH – Fabrice Gerdes will become the new Chief Sales Officer of VGH Versicherungen in Hanover on January 1, 2024. He succeeds Frank Müller, who is retiring after more than 30 years of service to VGH. Müller has been a member of the Executive Board for the public insurance group in Lower Saxony since 2012. The 63-year-old is responsible for sales, marketing and central service. From 2007 to 2018, he also served as Spokesman of the Board of Management of Öffentliche Versicherungen Bremen (ÖVB), which is part of the group of companies.
His successor Gerdes moves to Hanover from the Provinzial Group in Münster. The 41-year-old started his career in 2002 in the sales division of Ergo. From 2012 to 2018, he worked for the management consultancy Zeb in Münster, among others. During this time, he founded the online broker “Grün versichert”, which specializes in sustainable insurance products.
At Westfälische Provinzial, Gerdes had been responsible for exclusive sales as the main department head of sales management since 2018. After the merger of the Provinzial companies, he was appointed General Representative for operational exclusive sales. Since September 2022, Gerdes has been responsible for the insurance group’s hybrid strategy as divisional director at Provinzial Holding.
Neodigital – Beatrice Jacobus, 57, will join digital insurer Neodigital as the new sales director supporting the B2B2C division headed by Ulf Ackerschott. Her main task is to further develop the automotive division, an area in which she has many years of expertise.
© Neodigital
Jacobus has 30 years of professional experience in various positions in the insurance industry: she was Sales Director for Saxony, Saxony-Anhalt and Thuringia at Ideal Lebensversicherung from 2005 to 2011.
She then worked for Verti Insurance for more than eleven years, most recently as Manager of Business Development in the B2B area, managing sales with cooperation partners for the automotive and independent agent sales channels. “Beatrice Jacobus has many new ideas to take Neodigital’s sales to the next level,” said Stephen Voss, chief sales and marketing officer for Neodigital Insurance.
MLP – MLP SE has once again extended the contract of Executive Board member Reinhard Loose by five years – until 2029. The Chief Financial Officer is responsible for Compliance, Controlling, Purchasing, IT, Group Accounting, Risk Management, Internal Audit and Legal. The 58-year-old is also a member of the Executive Board of the subsidiaries MLP Finanzberatung SE and MLP Banking.
Prior to MLP, Loose was responsible for the financing, leasing and insurance companies of Daimler Financial Services and Mercedes Benz Bank in Spain. He was also a member of the Board of Management of Mercedes Bank in Stuttgart and Chief Operating Officer of the former DaimlerChrysler Financial Services. He began his career in risk controlling at Deutsche Bank.
Funk – Cord Harder, 61, and Tobias Kahlo, 37, will join current head Christian Pietsch at broker Funk in April to head the industrial property insurance division with a focus on claims management and risk engineering. Harder, who was previously deputy manager, will focus on acquisition and inventory. Kahlo will be responsible for the Processes and Structures area of Funk’s Risk Engineering as well as lead the Property Major Loss Services team.
Previously responsible for the industrial sector, Pietsch will focus on insurer management and product responsibility. In addition, he is to drive forward the broker’s digitization projects. In all areas of responsibility, the trio has equal rights and can represent each other.
Fonds Finanz – Vivien Steinke has taken over as Head of Human Resources at Fonds Finanz. The 44-year-old has already strengthened the management team since July 1, 2022. Before joining Fonds Finanz in 2020, she worked as a human resources manager at the catering company Dahlmann.
bbg Betriebsberatungs GmbH – Konrad Schmidt leaves at the end of the year 2023 the management of the bbg Betriebsberatungs GmbH, which stands behind the mediator fair DKM and the magazine Asscompact. The 44-year-old sports economist has worked for the company since 2004, but intends to devote himself to new tasks in the future. His position on the management board will not be filled. This makes Christian Durchholz the sole managing director.
Source: Herbert Fromme, Okan Mese, & Christian Bellmann, Herbert Fromme Versicherugsmonitor, 15.06.23