Talanx life and investment head to depart by 'mutual agreement'

German re/insurer  Talanx Group, the parent company of  Hannover Re and  HDI, has replaced the head of its life insurance and investment department at the retail Germany division, as the company plans to focus on future growth in retirement provision.

Patrick Dahmen will leave the group at the end of August by "mutual agreement" to pursue new professional opportunities.

Sven Lixenfeld will succeed Dahmen as head of life insurance and investment at the retail Germany division. He will join the board of management of HDI Deutschland AG as at September 1, and will also become chairman of the board of management of HDI Lebensversicherung AG.

Lixenfeld has many years of experience in the fields of personal and occupational retirement provision, life insurance-IT and bancassurance, having served as a board member at SV SparkassenVersicherung and consultant at Boston Consulting Group. He worked for SV SparkassenVersicherung for ten years, first as a general manager and then, from 2008 onwards, as a board member with responsibility for life insurance and IT. There he was responsible for the company’s focus on capital-efficient products and increased growth on the market for personal and occupational retirement provision, and for migrating all legacy systems to the new target IT environment. In 2016 Lixenfeld, he returned to Boston Consulting Group as a partner and managing director.

"With his wide-ranging expertise he can drive forward the development of our life insurance activities and is a perfect cultural fit for our team and the  HDI Group," said Torsten Leue, chairman of Talanx AG’s board of management and supervisory board chairman at HDI Deutschland AG. "Among other things, he will focus on managing the low interest rate period and on stricter regulatory requirements."

Christopher Lohmann, the member of Talanx AG’s board of management and chairman of the board of management at HDI Deutschland AG, added: “Classic guarantee life insurance is rapidly becoming less important. Despite this, we see personal and occupational retirement provision as an enormously important market, and one in which we aim to continue growing. Sven Lixenfeld combines in-depth knowledge of state-of-the-art retirement provision with IT and bancassurance expertise. This mix will help us continue the success of the German HDI Group’s retirement provision operations going forward."

Leue thanked Dahmen for his role in innovating the HDI Group’s retirement provision activities in recent years and in boosting solvency at its risk carriers. Dahmen joined HDI Deutschland AG in 2019 as the board of management member for life insurance and investment. Before that he had been a member of the management board of AXA Konzern AG since 2007, initially for finance and as from 2012 for the retirement provision function.

"Dahmen contributed substantially to the successful agreement of our sales partnership with Deutsche Bank AG. The Supervisory Board would like to wish him all the best for the future, both personally and professionally," he said.

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