Nimble IGI ponders European office to manage Brexit

IGI is continuing to navigate a steady course as it continues its journey from being a Middle Eastern company to an international company with Middle Eastern roots.

“We grew our top line last year by about 16 or 17 percent,” said Waleed Jabsheh, president of IGI. “This time last year Hurricane Irma had already hit the Caribbean and was on its way to the US. We were impacted by those events, specifically Irma, Maria and the Mexican earthquakes, but as we are not a US insurer we had no exposure to Harvey or the California wildfires.

“We remained profitable last year but did not generate the profits that we have averaged over the past six or seven years—we posted a combined ratio of 103 percent, which we were very pleased with given the nature of the past 12 months,” Jabsheh said.

He added that there was plenty of talk in the market at the end of last year about the need to return to sensible underwriting following the series of natural catastrophes, but the market’s reaction was not as significant as expected.

“This was our best opportunity as a market in a long time to push rates in the right direction and bring pricing back to a point where they reflect technical adequacy,” he said.

Despite this, he stressed, IGI is going to continue to execute its growth strategy, which is now tried and tested, modifying it to accommodate market conditions.

Commenting on how Brexit will impact IGI, Andreas Loucaides, chief executive officer of IGI UK, said IGI has a small amount of business in Europe and wants to maintain those clients. As such, the company is considering launching a European office, with Luxemburg, Malta or Ireland as a base.

Jabsheh added that the majority of IGI’s focus is on its existing hubs.

“We like to move at our own comfortable pace. In existing market conditions, you have to take care of what you already have and then look to build on it.

“IGI is a very nimble company—our size, flat structure, and our ability to make decisions quickly all mean decision-making is less complicated for us.”