Scotia to enter general insurance market | Loop Jamaica – Loop News Jamaica

Scotia Group Jamaica has announced plans to enter the general insurance market this year. 

President and CEO Audrey Tugwell Henry says general insurance as an additional business line will enable customers to engage with Scotia as a “one-stop financial service shop.” 

“Our primary reason is that we are a full financial services producer. We know that our customers have needs for general insurance, and that is the basis on which we will enter the market,” Tugwell Henry told Scotia’s annual general meeting on Friday, March 11. 

Scotia’s entry into the market is pending regulatory approval from the Financial Services Commission.

Once given the green light, it will compete against other players in the financial services space, namely NCB Insurance, Advantage General (ran by Sagicor), JN General and VM Group. 

Indeed, the addition of general insurance will complement Scotia’s mortgage portfolio, which has seen year-over-year growth of 14 per cent. 

“We do mortgage for our clients [and] we want to be able to support the end-to-end process by offering general insurance,” Tugwell Henry noted. 

Scotia’s mortgage customers currently utilise its preferred partner BCIC or another provider of their choice. 

For its recently ended fourth quarter ended January 2022, the bank’s mortgage portfolio delivered a strong performance, registering a 17 per cent increase over the comparative period. 

Scotia offers a diverse range of products and services –  personal, commercial, and small business banking, wealth management, personal insurance, and mortgages.

Its current insurance portfolio includes credit and life insurance, retirement accumulation and payout, offered through its subsidiary Scotia Jamaica Life Insurance. 

In its just-released January quarter results, Scotia said the insurance business continued to perform well, with non-creditor premiums increasing by 10 per cent year-over-year and creditor premium income increasing by 19 per cent versus the same period last year. 

Scotia Group delivered net income of $1.8 billion for the three months ended January 2022, which was $663 or two per cent above the comparative period in the prior year. 

Insurance revenues increased by $159.6 million or 25.2 per cent to $793.7 million, given higher transaction volumes stemming from improved cross-selling initiatives coupled with higher actuarial reserve releases and lower refunds.

Other income, which includes insurance revenues, however, declined by 12 per cent.

Meanwhile, net fee and commission income amounted to $1.5 billion and showed a reduction of $174 million or 10.4 per cent.

The reduction noted in fee and commission revenue was due to the continued execution of Scotia’s digital adoption strategies, geared towards educating customers about our various electronic channels that attract lower fees coupled with rising costs associated with the cards network. 

Assets increased by $38 billion or seven per cent, with a capital position amounting to $115.4 billion as at the quarter-end.