Bet­ter known as a com­mer­cial bank, Sco­tia’s in­sur­ance of­fer­ing is be­com­ing an emerg­ing force in T&T’s fi­nan­cial sec­tor.  

In its fi­nan­cials ear­li­er this year, Sco­tia In­sur­ance con­tributed 17 per cent to Sco­tia­bank T&T’s net in­come in 2024.  

Jar­od Per­ry­man, man­ag­ing di­rec­tor of Sco­tiaL­ife T&T (Sco­tia In­sur­ance), in a sit-down in­ter­view with Busi­ness Guardian, said that with near­ly $450 mil­lion in gross pre­mi­ums and pol­i­cy­hold­er li­a­bil­i­ties, up $58 mil­lion, Sco­tia In­sur­ance con­tin­ues to ce­ment it­self as a pil­lar of re­silience and fi­nan­cial se­cu­ri­ty in the re­gion.  

With a strat­e­gy that blends ag­gres­sive dig­i­tal in­no­va­tion with re­al-world im­pact, Per­ry­man said Sco­tia In­sur­ance is po­si­tion­ing it­self not just as a mar­ket leader, but as a cat­a­lyst for solv­ing the re­gion’s chron­ic un­der-in­sur­ance prob­lem.  

As Sep­tem­ber marks Life In­sur­ance Aware­ness Month, Per­ry­man ex­plained that the com­pa­ny is dou­bling down on both growth and pur­pose, aim­ing to nar­row the Caribbean’s per­sis­tent pro­tec­tion gap one pol­i­cy at a time.

On its web­site, the com­pa­ny breaks down the in­sur­ance cov­er­age it of­fers:

Sco­tia El­e­vate, which is a ver­sa­tile in­sur­ance so­lu­tion that comes with up to $500,000 in life in­sur­ance cov­er­age;

Sco­tia Plat­inum is a reg­is­tered ap­proved de­ferred an­nu­ity, which fa­cil­i­tates the max­i­mum tax de­duc­tions al­lowed by the Board of In­land Rev­enue (BIR) to ful­ly utilise your ben­e­fit;

Sco­tia Lega­cy is an ac­ci­den­tal death add-on, mean­ing if one should lose their life due to an ac­ci­dent, their  ben­e­fi­cia­ries will re­ceive the cov­er­age di­rect­ly;

Sco­tia Af­firm is a Uni­ver­sal Life In­sur­ance pol­i­cy that of­fers in­vest­ment op­tions cou­pled with sup­ple­men­tary perks; So­lace is a life in­sur­ance for the un­ex­pect­ed; and

Sco­tia Se­cure is a struc­tured sav­ings plan that can help  at­tain  medi­um to long term goals, such as  to pur­chase a new home, pro­vide for chil­dren’s ed­u­ca­tion.

Cel­e­brat­ed world­wide since 2004, Life In­sur­ance Aware­ness Month shines a spot­light on the “pro­tec­tion gap,”a per­sis­tent is­sue where in­di­vid­u­als and fam­i­lies re­main unin­sured or un­der­in­sured.  

Ac­cord­ing to Per­ry­man, this gap threat­ens not just per­son­al fi­nan­cial se­cu­ri­ty, but the eco­nom­ic re­silience of en­tire com­mu­ni­ties, and with grow­ing med­ical costs, ris­ing lifestyle dis­eases, and eco­nom­ic un­cer­tain­ty, the ur­gency to close this gap has nev­er been greater.

In an era of con­ve­nience and in­stant ser­vice, Per­ry­man not­ed that Sco­tia In­sur­ance is tak­ing bold steps to mod­ernise in­sur­ance in this coun­try.  

He said lead­ing the charge is Sco­tia El­e­vate, a no-med­ical, in­stant-is­sue life in­sur­ance and in­vest­ment hy­brid prod­uct de­signed for busy young pro­fes­sion­als and grow­ing fam­i­lies.

“Cus­tomers can walk in­to a branch, an­swer a few sim­ple ques­tions, and walk out cov­ered with up to $500,000 in life in­sur­ance, no nee­dles, and no wait­ing.”

“What we’ve done with El­e­vate is sim­pli­fy ac­cess,” says the Sco­tia In­sur­ance team.

“You don’t need a med­ical un­less you dis­close some­thing con­cern­ing. For most healthy in­di­vid­u­als, it’s as sim­ple as a con­ver­sa­tion,” Per­ry­man out­lined.

The so­lu­tion, he said, al­so in­cludes ac­cess to in­vest­ment funds based on the cus­tomer’s risk tol­er­ance, trans­form­ing tra­di­tion­al in­sur­ance in­to a mul­ti-func­tion­al fi­nan­cial tool.

He high­light­ed that by en­gag­ing ex­ist­ing cus­tomers, many of whom held on­ly one prod­uct, the in­sur­er was able to un­cov­er broad­er fi­nan­cial needs such as re­tire­ment plan­ning, pro­tec­tion against crit­i­cal ill­ness and wealth build­ing.

“Cus­tomers told us where they want­ed to go. We just had to lis­ten and find the right so­lu­tion. That’s trans­lat­ed in­to bet­ter pol­i­cy sales, stronger re­ten­tion, and more val­ue for every­one in­volved,” he cit­ed.

Al­so, Per­ry­man in­di­cat­ed that the re­ten­tion pro­gramme has played a crit­i­cal role, en­sur­ing that cus­tomers stay in­formed, en­gaged and con­nect­ed dig­i­tal­ly or in per­son.

As re­gion­al and glob­al In­surTech play­ers and dig­i­tal-first in­sur­ers en­ter the Caribbean mar­ket, Sco­tia In­sur­ance is fac­ing the com­pe­ti­tion head-on.  

Per­ry­man said from Dig­i­tal So­lace, a ful­ly on­line in­sur­ance prod­uct, to its 50 per cent+ dig­i­tal ser­vice in­ter­ac­tion rate, the com­pa­ny has tran­si­tioned over 5,000 trans­ac­tions from branch vis­its to dig­i­tal plat­forms.

Yet, he said, it hasn’t aban­doned the hu­man touch.

“We strike the bal­ance be­tween high-tech and high-touch. If you want a full ad­vi­so­ry con­ver­sa­tion for your fam­i­ly, your re­tire­ment, your lega­cy, we have in-branch ad­vi­sors ready. But if you just need some­thing quick and sim­ple, you can do that dig­i­tal­ly, end to end,” the man­ag­ing di­rec­tor de­tailed.

A key fo­cus for Sco­tia In­sur­ance is en­sur­ing that its so­lu­tions re­main ac­ces­si­ble to mid­dle-in­come and un­der­served pop­u­la­tions, es­pe­cial­ly in a ris­ing cost-of-liv­ing en­vi­ron­ment.

“Peo­ple of­ten think in­sur­ance is ex­pen­sive un­til we show them it can cost less than a night out. “Once we ex­plain the cost-ben­e­fit and make it easy to pur­chase, there are no more ex­cus­es.”

Fur­ther­more, Per­ry­man stat­ed that Sco­tia has in­tro­duced on­line pur­chas­ing and dig­i­tal self-ser­vice op­tions and con­tin­ues to ex­pand its ex­ten­sive branch net­work for face-to-face in­ter­ac­tions. With prod­ucts priced for in­clu­sion, the com­pa­ny is aim­ing to de­moc­ra­tise in­sur­ance for every stage of life.

He quick­ly stat­ed that it’s not just about the top line, as Sco­tia In­sur­ance us­es key in­di­ca­tors such as:

Net Pro­mot­er Score (NPS) to track cus­tomer sat­is­fac­tion;

Re­ten­tion rates to mea­sure val­ue and stick­i­ness; and

Dig­i­tal in­ter­ac­tion vol­ume to as­sess ac­ces­si­bil­i­ty and cus­tomer en­gage­ment.

“Ease of ac­cess is a met­ric we track care­ful­ly. If our cus­tomers can avoid traf­fic, lines, and frus­tra­tion, that’s a win. Over 5,000 cus­tomers have made that shift to dig­i­tal ser­vice, and that tells us we’re on the right path.”

De­spite progress, Per­ry­man said in­sur­ance pen­e­tra­tion in T&T re­mains low, and Sco­tia points to lack of aware­ness as the lead­ing bar­ri­er.

“Did you know you’re five to six times more like­ly to be­come crit­i­cal­ly ill be­fore 60 than you are to die? .That changes the con­ver­sa­tion. And when we tell peo­ple the cost of treat­ing cer­tain can­cers could ex­ceed $750,000, they start lis­ten­ing.”

Per­ry­man is de­ter­mined to push the con­ver­sa­tion for­ward, not just dur­ing Life In­sur­ance Month, but through­out the year.

Look­ing ahead, Sco­tia In­sur­ance be­lieves more can be done at a na­tion­al lev­el.

“We need to move be­yond aware­ness cam­paigns. In­sur­ance is not just a fi­nan­cial de­ci­sion, it’s a love de­ci­sion,” they say. “The gov­ern­ment can in­cen­tivise pri­vate pro­tec­tion through tax de­duc­tions, but every cit­i­zen needs to take own­er­ship of their pro­tec­tion, re­tire­ment and in­vest­ment jour­ney.”

With ris­ing life ex­pectan­cy and shrink­ing pub­lic pen­sion schemes, he out­lined that the mes­sage is clear: the time to act is now.

“From ba­by boomers to Gen Z, Sco­tia is build­ing a bridge from where cus­tomers are to where they want to be. And with over two decades of em­bed­ded suc­cess, the jour­ney is just get­ting start­ed,” Per­ry­man added.