CILA Chile 2024 plenary session speakers (L-R): Rodrigo Suarez Marsh - Colombia, Mariana Melgar - Uruguay, Margarida Lima Rego - Portugal and Fernando Hurtado de Mendoza - Peru.

New regional grouping announced

By Chris Rodd, AIDA Vice President

At the AIDA Europe meeting in Athens in May 2024, Jonathan Scragg (AIDA Treasurer and New Zealand representative on the AIDA Presidential Council) had preliminary discussions with the AIDA World President Carlos Estebenet (Argentina) concerning the formation of a new regional division for AIDA. Historically, AIDA has consisted of AIDA Europe, CILA (effectively AIDA South and Central America including Mexico) and Australia, New Zealand and several other South East Asia countries.

With the support of Carlos, and the AILA and NZILA boards, we had discussions with our colleagues in Hong Kong, Singapore, India, Taiwan and Japan about the creation of a new regional grouping – AIDA Asia Pacific. This proposal proved very popular with AIDA generally and was viewed as the ideal mechanism to enhance the development of AIDA in our region.

Membership of AIDA chapters in Asia are generally low. With Singapore’s bid to host the AIDA World Congress in 2031, the creation of this new grouping is recognition of the importance of the region in terms of insurance business and insurance. It is also hoped the creation of AIDA Asia Pacific will act as a stimulus for other countries to establish new AIDA chapters.

The resolution to create AIDA Asia Pacific was passed unanimously at the AIDA Executive meeting on 4 November and unanimously approved by the full AIDA Presidential Council on 5 November. At the same meeting, Singapore was officially awarded the 2031 World Congress.

As with AIDA Europe and CILA there will be a regional President who has yet to be appointed.

At the Presidential Council meeting it was also resolved that the next Council meeting – the first for 2025 – will be hosted by the Spanish chapter of AIDA Europe in Madrid from 28 – 30 May. The second meeting will be held in Buenos Aires in mid to late November.

Highlighting the importance of the Asia insurance market, proposals were put forward to hold a short regional meeting linked to an AIDA Presidential Council meeting in one of the Asia Pacific chapter countries prior to the Singapore World Congress in 2031. The date and venue are yet to be determined.

The Presidential Council meeting was then followed by a regional conference from 7 – 9. November, hosted by the Chilean chapter of CILA. It was well supported with attendees from all member South and Central American countries – 223 in all. The program of topics and speakers can be viewed on the AIDA – CILA website.