Orlando airs views at MEA Risk & Insurance Forum
The future of competition and pricing in the MEA area was on the agenda for the business strategy session of the MEA Risk & Insurance Forum in Dubai.
The forum is organised by Global Reinsurance and StrategicRISK.
The session was chaired by Global Reinsurance editor Samera Owusu Tutu.
The panel was:
- PartnerRe head of high growth markets Salvatore Orlando
- AIG (MENA) managing director Michael Jensen
- Apex Insurance chief executive Zuhair Al Atout
- Arig chief executive Yassir Albaharna
Some of the key points made by the panel were:
- Pricing pressure cannot continue to drive rates down, according to Orlando: ”In my view the only way for growth is market share, meaning reducing the price to get market share. Is this sustainable? I don’t think so”
- Being a generalist insurance firm is rarely the best approach, said Jensen: ”You need to pick your segment. You can’t be everything to everyone in this market. Some people have tried but that really doesn’t work, at least not very well”
- Clients, brokers and risk carriers are all complicit in driving prices down, according to Al Atout: “We are in a very small market so competition is very high”
- There is a culture of “finger-pointing” in the MEA region which discourages new approaches
A longer version of the session will be part of the complete write-up of the event published in the next print edition of Global Reinsurance.
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