Dean Ro­many knows how to get the job well done. He ex­udes charis­ma and hu­mil­i­ty and is pas­sion­ate about the in­sur­ance in­dus­try. How­ev­er, when he was award­ed an in­sur­ance schol­ar­ship years ago, his fa­ther was dis­ap­point­ed.

“My fa­ther said, ‘Af­ter you went to QRC you go­ing to do in­sur­ance? I was like, ‘Dad that’s what I want to do. I’m tak­ing the schol­ar­ship, you don’t have to pay any­thing for me. It will be bet­ter for us.’

“My dad was a po­lice of­fi­cer and his salary wasn’t all that. I was firm about what I want­ed,” Ro­many re­called.

That was more than 30 years ago and Ro­many has ac­quired a wealth of ex­per­tise and knowl­edge, span­ning a broad cross-sec­tion of the in­dus­try since then. His re­cent ap­point­ment as pres­i­dent of Guardian Gen­er­al In­sur­ance Ltd (GGIL) seems just the lat­est nat­ur­al pro­gres­sion.

In this new mis­sion, Ro­many’s main ob­jec­tive is to en­hance the com­pa­ny via the P5 mis­sion state­ment: peo­ple, pur­pose, process, pas­sion and per­for­mance.

Of these, he said, the most im­por­tant is the peo­ple—some 33 com­mit­ted agents and 215 ded­i­cat­ed sales­men, apart from the thou­sands of clients.

“The P5 was cre­at­ed to dri­ve change. I went around the com­pa­ny, even to our of­fice in Bar­ba­dos, to talk about why the need for change,” he said

“I showed fig­ures that the mar­kets are very chal­leng­ing and if we con­tin­ue like this and the in­creased cost by rein­sur­ers, we have to re­duce our cost some­how be­cause we can’t keep on in­creas­ing the rates to pol­i­cy­hold­ers. We had to change our game and our­selves in­ter­nal­ly.

“With the P5 mis­sion you get the per­for­mance and we show the per­for­mance and change month af­ter month and we are do­ing things bet­ter,” Ro­many ex­plained.

Fur­ther link­ing the vi­sion to the mis­sion, he point­ed out that part of the P5’s lo­go sim­ply means “im­prov­ing every day.”

“I want­ed a vi­sion that was sim­ple and by em­ploy­ees im­prov­ing every day it al­so en­hances prod­ucts and cus­tomer ex­pe­ri­ence. The share­hold­ers, by the re­sults, will be im­prov­ing every day. It’s our own code about im­prov­ing every­day,” he added.

Ro­many start­ed off in the in­dus­try in a cler­i­cal po­si­tion and quick­ly worked his way through the ranks, top­ping all the posts as­signed to him, in­clud­ing in San Fer­nan­do and Ja­maica.

“The key points are de­vel­op­ment, ex­po­sure and the link to the peo­ple part of the busi­ness and how I am fo­cused in terms of build­ing the peo­ple so they could serve cus­tomers a lot bet­ter.

“We are a lot about peo­ple de­vel­op­ment, process­es, ef­fi­cien­cy…to en­hance the pol­i­cy­hold­er ex­pe­ri­ence,” he said.

This phi­los­o­phy is crit­i­cal, es­pe­cial­ly when com­pa­nies are seek­ing to re­duce costs. Guardian Group is no dif­fer­ent.

“There is a lot hap­pen­ing with re­spect to cat­a­stro­phes—hur­ri­canes, earth­quakes—and as that hap­pens you find the cost of the whole­sale in­sur­ance or rein­sur­ance that we pur­chase…that cost will in­crease. As that cost in­creas­es we have to find ways of keep­ing our prices sta­ble or how can we re­duce pre­mi­ums or en­hance prod­ucts.”

But what does this mean for job se­cu­ri­ty in the com­pa­ny?

Will there be job loss­es?

Not­ing that the Guardian Group isn’t im­mune to tough eco­nom­ic times, Ro­many said the com­pa­ny is, how­ev­er, fo­cused on im­prov­ing ef­fi­cien­cy.

“By do­ing this I don’t think we will feel the ef­fects of what is hap­pen­ing in the coun­try. We are fo­cused on our ra­zor sharp vi­sion and mis­sion, not be­ing dis­tract­ed by a lot of things that are hap­pen­ing around.

“I al­so changed the or­gan­i­sa­tion­al struc­ture. We now have pri­vate risk so­lu­tions, cor­po­rate risk so­lu­tions. Those are not usu­al names be­cause we are say­ing we are here to help you. Our claims man­ag­er is called our claims so­lu­tions man­ag­er. When you have a claim we don’t want that to be a prob­lem, we want a so­lu­tion.

“It’s a men­tal at­ti­tude. The names were changed be­cause if the peo­ple have the right at­ti­tude then my job is so much eas­i­er.”

Guardian Group re­cent­ly in­tro­duced ini­tia­tives to im­prove the brand, in­clud­ing of­fer­ing a lega­cy dis­count at a time where com­pa­nies are faced with se­ri­ous cost in­creas­es.

“GGIL is recharg­ing. The com­pa­ny has been around for a long time but we are rein­tro­duc­ing the com­pa­ny to the pub­lic.

“With in­creased reg­u­la­tions via the new In­sur­ance Act and with in­creased cat­a­stro­phe ac­tiv­i­ty, the need is even greater for us to im­prove our ef­fi­cien­cy lev­els, for us to mon­i­tor our port­fo­lio, to en­hance our prod­ucts, for us to look at the speed of our trans­ac­tions, es­pe­cial­ly for the younger peo­ple who want to do every­thing much faster. They don’t want to come in­to the of­fice to trans­act busi­ness so we have to cater for that pop­u­la­tion,” he said.

Nat­ur­al dis­as­ters

In 2004, the com­pa­ny set­tled claims in ex­cess of $1 bil­lion due to dam­age caused by Hur­ri­cane Ivan. Last year, for Hur­ri­canes Ir­ma and Maria, that fig­ure was clos­er to $2 bil­lion in to­tal claims set­tled.

With flood­ing a peren­ni­al prob­lem in T&T, in­sur­ance cov­er­age is a ne­ces­si­ty. Ro­many has no­ticed an in­crease in the num­ber of pol­i­cy­hold­ers who want to in­crease the per­ils they have in­sured.

“For in­stance, tak­ing out flood in­sur­ance where flood in­sur­ance was not tak­en out be­fore, even tak­ing out earth­quake in­sur­ance where this was not tak­en out be­fore.

“That’s now an ob­vi­ous trend. We urge pol­i­cy­hold­ers to re­view their val­ues, to look at not on­ly whether or not they have in­sur­ance but al­so do they have the right type of per­ils in­sured,” Ro­many said, adding that in­ad­e­quate cov­er­age for nat­ur­al dis­as­ters re­mains a prob­lem.

“Let’s say you en­sure your prop­er­ty for half the val­ue. It means if you have a claim you’re go­ing to get half the amount,” he said.

“We saw a lot of that hap­pen­ing. Close to 60 per cent of in­sur­ers were in­ad­e­quate­ly in­sured and we saw how that af­fect­ed them. We saw fam­i­lies not know­ing what is the next step be­cause their most sig­nif­i­cant as­set, the place where they lived, was af­fect­ed by a loss and they on­ly in­sured it for half the amount.”

The com­pa­ny, in its ap­peal for prop­er pro­tec­tion, sends out no­tices to hold­ers at every re­new­al date.

Ve­hi­cle own­ers have al­so ex­pe­ri­enced their fair share of loss­es. Those who dri­ve along South Quay, Port-of-Spain, know all too well the haz­ards of dri­ving through flood wa­ters.

“A lot of in­sureds don’t an­tic­i­pate their ve­hi­cles will be af­fect­ed by floods. What they an­tic­i­pate is it will be af­fect­ed by col­li­sion dam­age, by theft. That’s one as­pect where they are nor­mal­ly in­ad­e­quate­ly in­sured.

“But in Trinidad we have not had sig­nif­i­cant loss­es by way of floods, so from our stand­point this would not have af­fect­ed the pre­mi­ums to the pool of pol­i­cy­hold­ers. There’s an el­e­ment called spe­cial per­ils in­sur­ance so hold­ers will have the op­tion of hav­ing that or not.

“It’s not a manda­to­ry re­quire­ment. For ex­am­ple, on the high in­come side a lot of the ve­hi­cles like Porsche, BMW are in­sured for third par­ty on­ly. They are not even in­sured in pay­ing for their ve­hi­cle if it’s in­volved in an ac­ci­dent. Some peo­ple choose not to in­sure the ve­hi­cle it­self but they will in­sure if they bounce or hit a third par­ty.”

Ro­many said the ma­jor­i­ty of peo­ple in the coun­try are cov­ered for earth­quakes.

“In Trinidad, the cat­a­stro­phe ex­po­sure is earth­quakes—not hur­ri­canes or flood­ing—earth­quake is the ma­jor cat­a­stro­phe ex­po­sure.”

T&T was struck by a 6.9 quake just last month and the com­pa­ny has had more than 200 claims to date. How­ev­er, this fig­ure can in­crease since this type of nat­ur­al dis­as­ter af­fects a build­ing’s struc­tur­al in­tegri­ty which takes a while to be prop­er­ly as­sessed be­fore claims can be sub­mit­ted.

From a cash flow per­spec­tive, Ro­many said, Guardian Group is al­ways one step ahead in its plan­ning.

“We pre­pare when there’s a sig­nif­i­cant loss. Now that we know about Hur­ri­cane Isaac, for ex­am­ple. We have had our meet­ings, we have had teams formed and we have had ad­justers ready to go out if it strikes.

“In terms of a cash flow stand point, we have had meet­ings as to how to get mon­ey quick­ly to in­sur­ers. All of that is be­ing pre­pared be­fore the loss hap­pens as com­pared to af­ter the loss hap­pens.”

He said it’s im­por­tant for the Gov­ern­ment and in­sur­ance com­pa­nies to play their re­spec­tive roles in cre­at­ing greater aware­ness about the im­por­tance of prop­er in­sur­ance cov­er­age.

Cater­ing to the next gen­er­a­tion

Guardian Group is the new sin­gle brand of the largest in­dige­nous fi­nan­cial ser­vices and in­sur­ance group in the Eng­lish and Dutch Caribbean. It op­er­ates across the re­gion in­clud­ing the east­ern and north­ern Caribbean, T&T, Bar­ba­dos, Ja­maica and the Dutch Caribbean.

The group in­cludes par­ent com­pa­ny Guardian Hold­ings Ltd, Guardian As­set Man­age­ment in T&T; Guardian Life of the Caribbean and Guardian Gen­er­al In­sur­ance Ltd in T&T and Bar­ba­dos; Guardian Life Ltd and Guardian Gen­er­al In­sur­ance Ja­maica Ltd, in Ja­maica; Fa­tum Hold­ings NV and all of its sub­sidiaries in Cu­ra­cao and Aru­ba and across the Dutch Caribbean.

De­scrib­ing Guardian Gen­er­al as a well-es­tab­lished com­pa­ny with a large bunch of loy­al pol­i­cy­hold­ers, Ro­many said the com­pa­ny is al­so cater­ing to the fam­i­lies of those hold­ers who are much younger.

He ex­plained: “It’s by us­ing tech­nol­o­gy as a plat­form to fa­cil­i­tate this. How do we use tech­nol­o­gy to mon­i­tor our port­fo­lio, to look at the port­fo­lio to see whether we are man­ag­ing the risks very well. That’s very im­por­tant be­cause in man­ag­ing risks very well you find ex­pens­es are less and if ex­pens­es are less then the en­hance­ments goes to the pol­i­cy­hold­er and that’s our fo­cus.”

Quot­ing 2017 sta­tis­tics, Ro­many said from a re­gion­al stand­point the mar­ket has gross pre­mi­ums of about $3.3 bil­lion “of which from the re­gion­al share Guardian has 35 per cent, so it’s a sig­nif­i­cant play­er. If you look at the Trinidad-on­ly busi­ness, that mar­ket is about $2.6 bil­lion of which Guardian has 26 per cent mar­ket share. In terms of the Trinidad mar­ket, our prop­er­ty mar­ket share is 39 per cent, mo­tor, 15 per cent.

“That’s part of the rea­son why we are tar­get­ing the mo­tor busi­ness be­cause we have what we con­sid­er a small mar­ket share but in both cas­es—in prop­er­ty and mo­tor. We are the largest in Trinidad and from a prof­itabil­i­ty stand­point as well. The gauge is the com­bined ra­tio. We have a com­bined ra­tio that is less than 90 per cent,” Ro­many ex­plained.

Chal­lenges fac­ing the in­dus­try

The new In­sur­ance Act means cap­i­tal re­quire­ments will be high­er and more de­mand­ing.

“It means com­pa­nies must be fo­cused on how they man­age their port­fo­lios. Port­fo­lio man­age­ment is key and with­out that we can have some dis­as­trous sit­u­a­tions. Man­ag­ing the port­fo­lio and the com­pe­ten­cies of the peo­ple that should be the fo­cus,” Ro­many said.

He said com­pa­nies should al­so ex­am­ine var­i­ous ways of trans­fer­ring the ben­e­fits of in­sur­ance to the next gen­er­a­tion.

“I’m look­ing for­ward to telling my son that I can pass my dis­count on­to him. I think that would start the in­ter­est in in­sur­ance.”

Flex­i­bil­i­ty, he added, is al­so a sta­ple for the sur­vival of any com­pa­ny.

“A lot of times we sell prod­ucts that are mar­ket savvy but not nec­es­sar­i­ly what peo­ple need. We have, for ex­am­ple; if you want a bare bones pol­i­cy you can get it. An en­hanced pol­i­cy? You can get that too.

“We have reached the point where you can come in and say, ‘this is what I have, what can I get.’ It’s al­most like cafe­te­ria-style; you can take some or a lit­tle of every­thing.”

Over the next cou­ple of weeks the com­pa­ny will be the “game chang­er,” in­tro­duc­ing fresh, unique prod­ucts where peo­ple can ex­pe­ri­ence gen­er­al in­sur­ance as some­thing ben­e­fi­cial, he said.

“We will use tech­nol­o­gy to bring new poli­cies to the mar­ket. Tech­nol­o­gy in terms of re­search, tech­nol­o­gy to re­duce pre­mi­ums. We think tech­nol­o­gy is the key, so strate­gi­cal­ly that’s where we are fo­cused. Look out for us!”