We’ve turned the page on 2020 and look forward to 2021with renewed resolution. Last year had its challenges and this one I expect will bring new more favorable ones. I hope that you and your families have been able to fully enjoy this festive season despite the special conditions imposed by Covid19 and that, for you, this new year is synonymous with optimism and opportunity.
2021 at OneLife, a year of hope and resolution
In 2021, OneLife turns 30! Our first policy was underwritten in 1991, a moment which made our company a true pioneer of the Luxembourg unit-linked industry. This is a special event we will be celebrating this year.
Our 30th anniversary gives us an opportunity to take stock of our achievements over the years as well as planning for the future.
So in 2021, as long as the pandemic lasts, we will maintain our business continuity to serve our partners and clients in the best way possible as well as keeping our employees and their families safe and healthy. This year as well, at OneLife everyone’s minds will be focused on staying close to our core markets and our partners and clients during often difficult times. Hopefully the planned vaccination campaigns should bring an improved situation in the second half of the year.
This resilience and focus resulted in 2020 in one of the highest new business figures ever reached by the company in its 30-year history, as investors turned more of their attention to the safe, flexible and protected environment offered by Luxembourg and OneLife insurance solutions. As in 2020, we will keep the momentum going on our 2021 project plan to ensure delivery of key improvement initiatives to our service model. This combination of resilience and the enthusiasm and engagement of the OneLife team provides an exciting and productive environment for us to discover new ways of working and thinking.
Strong commitment to our markets
Across all our markets, our wish is to persevere and further deepen the significant efforts made during 2020 to increase proximity with our distribution partners and respond to their evolving needs with relevant solutions.
In Belgium where our outstanding team demonstrated their strong ability to generate new business and closely accompany our partners, we will keep working hard to live up to the trust placed in OneLife by our clients and partners. As in 2020, we are planning to hold our annual Investment Forum in an innovative way, combining in-person events in full respect of health and hygiene rules with a live broadcast for partners who are not able to attend themselves. We will introduce new digital tools to our secure online portal to further facilitate the investment process for our partners and clients.
In 2021, we will consolidate the strong 2020 IFA network growth in France where our sales and support teams opened new relationships across the country and introduced new investment solutions for internal collective funds and specialised insurance funds. We will stay in close touch with many partners through our dedicated newsletter and webinar events. We will also accompany and support our parent, Groupe APICIL, through our French branch in offering flexible and profitable pure unit-linked solutions for the French clientele.
We will strengthen our commitment to the future of the Nordic markets through the implementation of the strategic agency partnership with ELPS, a leading provider of cross-border wealth management solutions in the region. Our aim is to provide a wide range of life assurance and pension solutions to our partners and clients in the Nordics, both in-market and to those clients who are mobile, moving to other jurisdictions across Europe and beyond.
In Iberia, and more specifically in Spain, the tax ruling earlier in the year led to a number of new cases and strengthened our position in the market. We expect this to continue in 2021 with Luxembourg life assurance demonstrating certain key advantages when compared to local solutions and we will continue to develop relationships with key institutional players across the region and develop promising dedicated solutions for their extended networks.
Now that the soft Brexit is effective in 2021, we will take advantage of the increased demand for portable, cross-border solutions from the UK Expats market and develop further relationships with a number of European IFA networks who specialise in serving this client segment resident across the EU. In particular, OneLife will expand its new external funds solution to meet the specific investment needs of the market.
Planning for the future
At OneLife, we look forward to this new year and to continuing to build our vision of the future! Together with our parent, Groupe APICIL, we are working on a four year plan to define our future DNA around key areas like social & environmental responsibility, customer experience and diversification of our value proposition.
We will continue to deliver on our commitment to make interactions with OneLife simpler and easier through initiatives such as daily valuation of investment portfolios at key custodian banks, a trading process for Specialised Insurance Funds and new product and solutions development across our markets.
In other words, at OneLife we aim to make this special year one of essential wealth for our trusted partners, clients and employees.
I wish you and your families and loved ones a healthy and prosperous new year!
Antonio Corpas
CEO OneLife
