What is the most important aspect in the whole procedure of the BELRIM prize?
Carl Leeman: The most important thing, and this is often forgotten, is making sure there are
enough candidates. Relatively speaking, that’s where most of the time creeps into writing to
and visiting colleges and universities in the hope that people will effectively send in their
work. We have to call a cat a cat: BELRIM today is known only in the small world of insurers
and brokers. So a promotional tour and sensitisation is necessary. And we can certainly
highlight the carrot that hangs in front of the cart because the reward is not minus – a paid
trip to the biennial FERMA forum, in Madrid this time. Surely, for someone in the industry, it
is an interesting prize. In terms of training, information and making contacts, it is surely very
useful. From each country, by the way, the winners are sent and brought together.
How many works have you received and what, specifically, does the jury do with them?
Carl Leeman: We received three works for this edition, which is too few. In the second
phase, the jury members will read certain works in detail according to their know-how. They
will then see who is interested in the subjects, which are very diverse. It can really be about
anything. We also see who from the board of directors is willing to sit on the jury. Given that
only three works were sent in, the five jury members have read all the works. This has not
always been the case in the past.
And how will the winner be determined?
Carl Leeman: The different works are discussed and debated together. Believe me, you
come to a different and better conclusion this way because everyone can then put forward
their own points of view. That conversation between the jury members is important to
arrive at a more objective assessment. For this edition, we effectively set up a call with the
judges and went over everything well and then we came to a consensus quite quickly. It has
to be said that the three diverse works all had added value, with one being a bit more
theoretical than the other two.
What is important to you in a paper or thesis?
Carl Leeman: That it deals with a subject about which not too much has been said yet and
that it has an original approach. We can always use a fresh perspective within the sector. In
other words, there is no kind of professional blindness. From a practical point of view, I find
a work useful if you can get something concrete out of it. So it is interesting when a practical
solution is suggested. For example, one of the works ended up being quite theoretical with
lots of hypothetical conclusions and suggested that politics should solve it. I could find that
less palatable: that’s a dead giveaway.
Have you also spoken to the candidates?
Carl Leeman: Definitely. There has been an interview with two of the candidates. During
question time, we invariably put the heat on the candidates and asked them, among other
things, how they would flesh out their proposals in concrete terms and to whom they would
raise them. The fact that all the judges asked questions was positive because everyone has
their own approach. One candidate did not come to present his paper because he said he
did not have enough time to prepare. Internally, we then had discussions about whether he
would still be eligible for the prize because not everyone was on the same page.
What convinced you to award Karo Vanparrijs’s paper the BELRIM prize?
Carl Leeman: It is not a simple matter. I found the different ways of calculating those
indicative tables and drawing attention to them interesting. Not everyone is aware of this.
Karo clearly knows what she is doing and defended herself well during question time. As a
jury, it is important to feel that the candidate knows the in and outs of the subject well and
that it is not an AI paper. I am not against a helping hand of AI, and it is good that they can
work with it, but the candidate has to master the material.
What did you miss in the whole thing?
Carl Leeman: For some time now, I have noticed that the aspect of risk management is not
discussed enough in the works we receive. If risk management is not or not sufficiently
touched at colleges and universities, one cannot expect students to broach topics around it.
Apart from promoting our prize, we will still have to encourage all educational institutions to
start talking more about risk management as such in their classes instead of a more
theoretical approach to each subject separately. It revolves too much around insurance
while this is only one of the tools at your disposal as a risk manager.
You can read the interview with winner Karo Vanparrijs here.
