POL I CY The Israeli Insurance, Pension & Finance Newspaper 7 Special edition 2022 arrangement, paving the way for the other insurance companies to follow Migdal. Ofer was a professional who looked at the minutiae before making up his mind and when he wasn’t familiar with a subject, he was not reluctant to ask questions or to hear from someone who had the know-how on the subject. Ofer’s high professional abilities combined with his regard for detail, enable him to apply a proper attitude towards insurance agents, brokers, suppliers, service providers, appraisers, and employees, who honored him for those qualities. Ofer would lay stress on the obligations of an insurer towards an insured who entered into an insurance contract with it; these obligations include providing an accessible, high-quality service, including the rapid and fair settlement of claims. Ofer’s managerial maxim was, first and foremost, to create a workplace where people like to work, thereby creating a high level of motivation for employees of all ranks to fulfill their roles to the best of their ability, and so leading to high productivity, efficient performance, job satisfaction and loyalty to the employer. In Ofer’s opinion, an employee’s positive attitude to the workplace creates an important way of preventing unwanted turnover and retaining the good employees, who, by the nature of things, are courted by competitors. As a CEO, Ofer promoted the use of clear, unambiguous, guidelines and procedures, sometimes even at the expense of the insurer’s “immediate interest”, so that the guidelines and procedures will be adhered to by the employees as a matter of course and to enable effective control over their performances, without using “inflated” mechanism. It was Ofer’s view that this sort of approach ultimately yields good business results. Just as a football coach might give his players freedom to act without sticking rigidly to some predetermined tactic, Ofer would give senior executives freedom to exercise broad discretion and to reach their full potential but still to do so within the policy and strategy of the insurer and subject to the implementation of its work plans. One of Ofer’s most important decisions in his role as CEO of Migdal was to develop and promote Migdal’s general insurance sector which Migdal had historically seen as being of secondary importance because he believed that external factors would detract from the substantial profits which Migdal had derived from life insurance in the past. Accordingly, Ofer decided to allocate efforts and resources between the various insurance sectors, and first and foremost to general insurance which he saw as the basic insurance structure for any insurance company. Ofer also held the notion that it is essential to promote young executives, even when they lacked experience. He believed that they would acquire experience “as they went along” and that, at the end of the day, the insurer would benefit from this attitude. Ofer attached great importance to reinsurance and saw it not only as a way of protecting against catastrophes but also as a factor that enables a direct insurer to accept business that it could not take on without reinsurance, because of the limited risk capacity that a direct insurer can accept. In addition, Ofer also saw reinsurance as a stabilizing factor in claims experience. It should be noted, that the basic management principles which Ofer instigated at Eliyahu yielded handsome profits, which were used by its controlling shareholder to make successful investments that enabled him to acquire the control of Migdal. Migdal’s recent business results, not all which Ofer manage to witness – have been derived, inter alia, from the seeds which Ofer had sown as CEO. Ofer’s main hobby was football and, to some extent, basketball. Ofer was a die-hard fan of Hapoel Tel Aviv, even helping them behind the scenes to overcome crises, and especially helping the Hapoel Tel Aviv basketball team out of a deep crisis and preventing it from being dissolved. Despite the crises with the Hapoel Tel Aviv football team and the long periods without any real achievement, Ofer remained loyal to his team and went to their matches in Israel and abroad, saying that support for a football team does not depend on its success but is a Gordian knot that lasts a lifetime. Another of Ofer’s social initiatives was Migdal’s awarding of scholarships to students from the Ethiopian community because he recognized that members of this community must be encouraged to acquire higher education to reinforce social equality. Ofer was patently a “family man”. A man who put his family first and foremost in his life. He would rarely put off a family vacation or event due to professional commitments, and this was the message he also preached to the employees and the managers who worked under him. The insurance industry has parted ways with the late Ofer Eliyahu with deep sorrow and sadness, but with overwhelming recognition of the contribution he made to the industry and we pledge to preserve his memory intact. We hope that what we have said about the late Ofer Eliyahu to the participants of the Tel Aviv Re conference will give those who did not know him personally, to have some idea about Ofer’s virtues and business philosophy. May Ofer rest in peace. Joseph Halevy & Ofer’s collogues in the Israel Insurance Association
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