Rimac Seguros leads the way for Peru’s insurance market | Video

Transcript

Peru’s insurance sector has a stable outlook according to ratings agency Fitch, with ample room to enhance insurance penetration levels, currently at 1.7 percent to Latin America’s average of 3 percent. World Finance speaks to Gonzalo De Losada, Executive Vice President of Rimac Seguros, to discuss how his company has grown to become one of the leading insurers in the country.

World Finance: Can you tell me why is insurance penetration in Peru lower than the average in Latin America, and how has the industry advanced over the past few years?
Gonzalo De Losada: There are two reasons why the industry penetration is so low compared to our neighbouring countries. One is our GDP per capital is still behind that of Chile, Columbia, Brazil for instance.

The second reason is culturally people in Peru haven’t gotten to the prevention and protection levels, thinking ahead in the future as other populations have.

In 2013, we have had several new companies enter in the market, with pension fund reform that we had, and we expect more competition to come to Peru as the country develops. We are now in a market of $3.5bn. We grew five percent this year, but we have been growing at over 10 percent in insurance growth in the last five years on average.

[W]e have been growing at over 10 percent in insurance growth in the last five years on average

The sectors of insurance that have grown the most are life, growing at 26 percent this year for instance, vehicle at 18 percent, and healthcare 15 percent, and property and casualty growing 13 percent. So we are having strong growth rates.

The country and the market are developing, so we expect it to continue developing as we continue to grow as a country and GDP per capita continues to grow.

World Finance: Tell me about your company’s particular role in the insurance market.
Gonzalo De Losada: Rimac Seguros is the leading insurer in Peru. We have been in the marker for 118 years now. We are the leading company with the largest market share, we are present in every segment of the market and we lead each of these segments.

Since Peru is a country in which investment has been growing a lot, we have insured a lot of the capital expenditure that has gone into the country. For instance, the Line 2 of the subway that has been built in Peru is being insured by us. I can tell you ten more examples of the largest investments being made in the country are being insured by Rimac.

Our slogan is to build a world with less worries, with less concerns to our clients, so they can protect themselves, and we are there with them to protect them, and with them in their investments.

World Finance: Now are particular insurance products and services in increasing demand in Peru, and how is your firm living up to this demand?
Gonzalo De Losada: We are going with our clients in their investments and in their growth whether they’re individuals or corporates. Individuals are getting richer in Peru, and they are thinking ahead more than they were ten years back. So life insurance and health insurance is growing significantly.

But also corporate customers are investing and so property and casualty is also growing, and so those are the main drivers I would say of the insurance market growth.

We are seeing a lot of healthcare and life insurance growing, and people from lower segments of socio-economic levels of the country acquiring more insurance, and we are trying to develop products that go for this segment, that are simpler, that are lower price, with an easier way to buy, because it’s always hard for an individual that makes $500 per month in salary to acquire an insurance, and we’re trying to get to these clients in an easier way so that they can protect their net worths.

World Finance: So how is your firm looking to develop in the coming years?
Gonzalo De Losada: We are improving all of our processes and changing within a transformation programme to get the best technology in insurance in the world.
The company has been growing a lot in the last ten to fifteen years, so some of our processes are still with some room for improvement, and we are enquiring with IBM, we have a project through the whole company to review every process so that we make issuing of new policies easier.

Rimac Seguros is the leading insurer in Peru

We make collection of policies easily, and transforming every process with new technology, that’s what we’re doing to transform ourselves, to look ahead to the next ten years.

World Finance: Definitely an exciting development. What role has leadership played in your company’s business development?

Gonzalo De Losada: An important role, leadership as I mentioned, Rimac is the leasing insurer, and we need our people to be leaders in creating new things. We are growing at such higher rates, we need to build infrastructure for instance, to go along with our demand.

In the health sector for instance, we have invested in hospitals, so that our supply of healthcare can match the demand. The same we have done for vehicles, for instance. We have to put people to be in the streets when they get into a car accident.

So transforming the industry, in a growing industry, has been challenging in taking that leadership role for Rimac, as the leading company, to build that change in the country.

World Finance: Exciting time ahead, thank you for joining me today.
Gonzalo De Losada: Thank you.