Meeting SOPIAD, winner of the ACA Insurance Innovation Award 2023

The ACA Insurance Innovation Award highlights the emphasis on innovation within Luxembourg’s insurance sector. After presenting to a jury of insurance industry professionals, we invited our community to participate and voice their choice for the winner of the 2023 edition. Both the jury and the public cast their votes, and the grand winner of this edition is SOPIAD. SOPIAD offers personalized diagnostic solutions for investment portfolios for life insurers, aiming to reassure investors and simplify investment decisions, all while fully complying with the new European directives (IDD, SFDR).

As a university spin-off, innovation is at the core of our activity. Winning this prestigious competition confirms our belief that it is timely to navigate towards a horizon where creativity, technology, and collaboration are essential keys to addressing the future challenges of the insurance sector.

Pierre Nemeth, CEO de SOPIAD

As a spin-off of HEC Liège Management School and equipped with a renowned scientific committee, Sopiad’s mission is to provide robust scientific resources to life insurers. This is aimed at simplifying the investment experience, increasing customer engagement for life insurance products, all while adhering to the latest (and future) European directives such as IDD, SFDR, and Retail Investment Strategy.

To achieve this, SOPIAD offers personalized investment portfolio diagnostic solutions (called SAFIR) that assess the adequacy of the portfolio (dedicated internal funds, collective funds, specialized external funds, aggregations of different products) in relation to the defined investment profile (risk level and sustainability commitments).

Their solutions will be deemed highly relevant for the following professions (and will enhance synergies between them):

• For fund managers: The SAFIR solution supports managers in defining the fund’s investment policy, monitoring its alignment with initially defined commitments, reviewing fund allocation as needed, and ultimately communicating sustainability-related fund information for regulatory reporting.
• For the compliance officer: SAFIR expedites the implementation of current and future directives regarding information transparency and investor protection (SFDR, IDD, Retail Investment Strategy), and monitors whether investment rules are adhered to by appointed intermediaries (wealth managers, investment advisors).
• For financial intermediaries (wealth managers, investment advisors): The solution is shared with the end client to determine their investor profile, simplify the selection of products comprising the portfolio, and reassure the end client during the investment experience.

SAFIR consists of 3 complementary modules:

• The client profiling: Based on behavioral finance, it allows advisors to capture, in addition to the risk profile, preferences in terms of sustainability. This module also includes a ‘literacy’ section to enhance financial and non-financial education.
• Personalized portfolio diagnostic: Simulate portfolio compositions or optimize portfolio allocation considering a defined profile (risk and ESG) or commitments. This diagnostic will include a ‘storytelling’ function to explain the results of the diagnostics in a simple and transparent manner.
• Portfolio monitoring: Monitor the evolution of portfolios over time. Alerts (and explanations) will be automatically generated in case of deviation/lack of adequacy detected between the portfolio and the defined profile/commitments.”

Discover the presentation of SOPIAD at the ACA Insurance Innovation Award: