Pictet Asset Services is expanding its insurance-focused offering in Luxembourg, betting on the Grand Duchy’s record-breaking life insurance sector as a springboard for institutional growth.
Luxembourg’s life insurance market is firing on all cylinders. In 2025, annual premiums reached €31.1 billion — a 16% year-on-year surge — while assets under management climbed to €262.5 billion, up 8.5%. Against this backdrop, Pictet Asset Services (PAS) is sharpening its focus, positioning itself as the go-to institutional partner for insurers operating in the Grand Duchy. The Geneva-headquartered group is reinforcing both its commercial proposition and its specialist life insurance team in Luxembourg, with a value proposition built around speed, connectivity, and discretion.
We sat down with Claude-Joseph Pech, Equity Partner at Pictet Group and Deputy CEO of Pictet Asset Services, to understand what is driving the move.
Luxembourg’s life insurance sector hit record premiums of €31.1bn in 2025. Is this a structural trend or a cyclical spike?
Luxembourg’s record premiums reflect both structural growth—driven by cross-border demand (France in first place), regulatory stability, and product innovation (Luxembourg insurance-specific features, FAS, and the new circular on FIC)—and some cyclical tailwinds. I think the long-term trajectory remains positive, but periodic spikes can occur due to market or tax changes. In times of geopolitical trouble, the search for a safe product in a triple-AAA country with strong asset protection (triangle de sécurité) further reinforces this trend.
Just like Luxembourg-domiciled funds, Luxembourg life insurance has become a recognised brand of quality in Europe and internationally. It represents an ideal solution for wealth planning and succession optimization in cross-border situations. Luxembourg life insurance stands out primarily for high-net-worth individuals, international families, and investors with complex wealth structuring needs.
Luxembourg based insurance companies, with the support of the ACA (Association of Insurance and Reinsurance Companies of Luxembourg), have successfully promoted these products in major financial centres.
You treat insurers as clients in their own right, not just distribution channels. What does that actually change in how you work with them?
A Luxembourg life insurance structure can involve up to five key parties: the depository bank, the external wealth manager and broker (where applicable), the policyholder, and the insurer. For many years, Pictet Asset Services—leveraging its longstanding expertise in servicing external wealth managers—naturally prioritized relationships with external managers, viewing the insurer primarily as the structurer of the policy. Today, alongside our continued commitment to the wealth managers, we have strengthened our relationships directly with insurers in order to develop privileged partnerships, as well as a dedicated offering and specialised team tailored specifically to their needs.
How does Pictet’s private banking DNA translate into a genuine edge in a sophisticated B2B environment?
In both B2B and B2C, service quality remains essential. As margins have tightened, many institutions have gradually sacrificed quality in favor of lower costs—but this model has clear limits. Low cost often leads to lower service standards, client frustration, and ultimately higher correction or compensation costs. What appears efficient in the short term can become far more expensive through errors, remediation and weakened trust. Even in B2B, there is growing fatigue with low-quality providers.
Professional clients value reliability, expertise, and long-term partnership just as much as private clients do. Whether corporate or individual, clients seek trusted relationships and institutions capable of delivering consistent value over time. Enduring quality and trust are what sustain durable partnerships. In an increasingly commoditised environment, service excellence remains a decisive differentiator… and Pictet has implemented this model with success for more than 200 years. This translates into a client-centric mindset, high-touch service, flexibility and the ability to deliver complex, customised solutions.
Private assets are increasingly entering insurance wrappers. What are the main operational challenges in custodying them?
First and foremost, the private asset class must be fully understood and properly managed. At Pictet, we have a dedicated team of 60 professionals in Luxembourg focused specifically on this activity. Funds of private assets or direct private assets cannot be approached in the same way as listed equities.
Within the framework of insurance policies, underlying assets must be capable of being frozen immediately at the request of the CAA should the triangle of security be activated. The due diligence we perform on both insurers and private asset investments enables us to hold these assets on behalf of the insurer. Not all banking institutions are willing or able to apply this model, given the associated credit risks (committed capital) and reputational risks, particularly where robust due diligence on underlying investments is lacking. Given the growing interest in this asset class within Pictet Asset Services, we are well positioned to support insurers in structuring and executing these investments in full compliance with CAA doctrine.
What is the biggest threat to Luxembourg’s dominance in cross-border life insurance over the next five years?
The main risks are regulatory changes in key markets, increased competition from other financial centres, and potential changes in tax treaties or EU policy that could impact the attractiveness of Luxembourg’s insurance policies. We are living in an era where fiction increasingly catches up with reality, and heavily indebted countries may indeed be tempted to raise taxation or introduce stronger protectionist measures on life insurances. While such scenarios are undoubtedly being considered, life insurance remains one of the last true financial sanctuaries and a preferred savings vehicle in many of the countries concerned.
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