EUROPE – The Comité Européen des Assurances has named a specialist in pensions and insurance auditing as its new economics and finance director.

The CEA, the trade association for European insurers, said that Patricia Plas was formerly director of the Financial Services Group at PricewaterhouseCoopers in Brussels, where she specialised in auditing insurance companies and pension funds.

“Patricia’s previous experience and personal skills in accounting are of great value to CEA’s work on international financial reporting standards,” said CEA director general Daniel Schanté.

“Furthermore, she has already proven her competence in other key issues for the European insurance industry including Solvency II, proposals for an EU reinsurance framework and the draft transparency directive."

Plas is a graduate in economics and finance and is a chartered accountant in Belgium.

The appointment comes as the new chairman of the CEA’s life insurance committee, Gérard Ménéroud, says pensions are a focus in the next few months. In its 2002 annual report the CEA said the European pension funds directive represented a “substantial success” for insurers.

The CEA represents more than 5,000 European insurance
companies with a total domestic premium income of 855 billion euros.