Grid has appointed Legal & General distribution director of group protection Colin Fitzgerald as chairman.
He succeeds Paul White whose three-year tenure has come to an end.
Fitzgerald’s career in the employee benefits industry spans more than 40 years and including leadership roles at Unum and Bupa.
As chairman of the group risk industry body, Fitzgerald (pictured) will focus on bringing more visibility to the contribution the group risk industry makes to employers, employees and their families. He will also work on highlighting potential for growth, with employers increasingly focused on workplace wellbeing, and provider propositions being enhanced significantly over recent years to meet that need.
Fitzgerald’s focus will be on bringing members together to collaborate in educating clients on the key role that group risk benefits play as part of an organisational wellbeing strategy. He will work with the industry to inform discussions with clients, build better awareness of value-added support, and provide employers with clear messages they can use with their employees to drive engagement.
Fitzgerald said: “What we do matters, and so many more employers, their employees and their families should be benefiting from the products and services we provide.
“I’m proud of how, as an industry, we’ve evolved from the focus purely on paying claims to bringing additional value through a comprehensive range of support services for employees.
“It’s the most significant change I’ve witnessed in my career.
“It’s exciting to see how the value-added benefits within group risk support employees of all ages, as well as their families, and a key part of my role at Grid will be to work with the industry to tell this story better.”