Jun 2010 Financial News

Sagicor CEO: Caribbean insurance not hard hit by crisis

Jun 08, 2010

The insurance industry in the Caribbean was not hard hit by the global economic downturn said Dodridge Miller, Group president and chief executive officer, Sagicor Financial Corporation.

“We have not seen any fallouts as a result of the recession. I think that’s general within the industry. The Caribbean operations tend to be immunised from the impact of the global recession. “Most of the times, people do not want to give up insurance during the times of the recession. It’s not that easy to get it back and you have to go through medical tests, and as you grow older it, becomes more difficult and more pricey, and so people tend not to give up insurance that easily in the Caribbean,” he said.

Miller said this yesterday at the Hilton Trinidad hotel, St Ann’s, where Sagicor released its first quarter results for 2010.

Miller said Sagicor intends to offer new products soon, but did not release details. “For the rest of the year, we will continue to grow our business in the Caribbean and there are a couple new things that we would want to do and make ourselves more attractive to the market and, generally to achieve the double-digit growth that we have seeing for the last couple years. These would be in the areas of products, but we won’t say more at this time,” Miller said.

Chilean earthquake
The Sagicor Group recorded net income of US$12.5 million for the first quarter. Its results were affected by losses incurred by its United Kingdom operations, Sagicor at Lloyd’s, he said. The Sagicor Group of Companies recorded US$5.3 million less net income for the three months ended March 31, 2010, compared to the same period last year. “The results would have even been stronger, except we had to make a provision for potential claims from the Chilean earthquake through Lloyd’s. We operate in several different countries. Because of the earthquake in Chile, we have potential claims coming from that and we have made provision for US$7.5 million in the event of claims coming through. So the results would have even been stronger,” he said.

Miller remained optimistic about the rest of the year. “The first quarter is usually the weakest of the year, so we are optimistic about our performance for the rest of the year,” he said. In results published earlier, chairman Stephen McNamara said its net income for the first quarter was US$12.5 million compared to US$17.8 million in 2009. Net income attributable to shareholders also took a beating. The figure was US$6 million compared to US$10.5 million in 2009.


Source:
Raphael John-Lall
Trinidad Guardian
Tuesday June 8, 2010

http://guardian.co.tt/business/business/2010/06/08/sagicor-ceo-caribbean-insurance-not-hard-hit-crisis