INTERVIEW
By
Vishal Bhidu
On the sidelines of the Organisation of Eastern and Southern Africa Insurers (OESAI) conference recently held in Mauritius, Platform Africa caught up with the CEO at the re-insurance broker EllGeo Re Jean Alain Francis who also serves as the OESAI Chairman of the Local Organizing Committee. In this interview, he expresses his views on the conference’s significance for the island, the future of reinsurance, and what it takes for the jurisdiction to emerge as a reinsurance hub in the region. Francis is a Chartered Insurance Broker, FCII (UK) and holds an MBA.
- The 45th OESAI Annual Conference held in Mauritius constituted a milestone of celebrating 50 years since its inception. Can you share its significance for the insurance sector and in particular for the organization?
We are celebrating the anniversary of the OESAI where interestingly enough it was set up in Mauritius 50 years back and the jurisdiction is among the founding members of the organization. The island has always occupied a special place in the OESAI as a regional organization and certainly, the insurance sector is also represented in other African organizations like the African Insurers Organization which is also 50 years old.
So, this event being an annual conference of the OESAI is of huge significance to us. It’s a conference that usually shifts around several member countries, and comes back to Mauritius after every 8 years where it was last held on the local shores in 2015. As a local market, we always welcome the opportunity.
What we see is that the local market in general tends to be well respected among the international circle and we believe that by welcoming people hailing from several countries, several companies, and several different organisations, we are able to share meaningful discussions on a wide gamut of topics. It’s about sharing what we do here and it’s also about learning from others as well.
2. As we are recovering from the pandemic and ushering into the post covid world, what are the challenges that you see in the insurance sector with opportunities unfolding across reinsurance, bancassurance and new derivatives as we speak a lot about Mauritius for Africa while it’s been tapping into Indian and European investment?
First, I will answer about the challenges, particularly COVID-19 that have forced us to do a rethinking on a number of things calling for different approaches that need to be changed. I think that insurers also had to adapt but for me, the biggest change is that both developed and developing economies the world over have suffered. Obviously for developing economies, the impact tends to be worse and therefore, calling for a bigger need to go for structural and sometimes disruptive changes so that we can come up with ways and means to be more sustainable.
During COVID times, the insurance sector played its role by paying claims that were covered and it also happened that sometimes there was a grey area on whether the claims were covered or not. But, in the majority of cases, insurance has taken a rather lenient view in the sense that they should try to compensate the insured and not engage in litigations. Of course, there have been some litigations, for more complex issues.
The way forward for insurers and other issuers is a hope of going to the market with tailor-made products to reach out to the majority of the people. This is what the conference strives to address and convey where a vast majority of people do not know about insurance and are largely unaware how insurance could help them. I think that it falls on insurers to get the message across to them where the onus also lies on them to try and simplify their products while finding effective ways to get these products and services to the people.
3. Can you share about EllGeo Re and its various market and product offerings cutting across different classes of people, whether it’s for corporates or individuals and private companies?
EllGeo Re evolves in a quite niche market segment where the bottom line lies in the fact that we don’t do insurance and rather undertake reinsurance. In short, we help insurers to insure themselves where they can propose products and solutions to clients. We are among the leading reinsurers brokers in Mauritius and we have been incepted for 20 years where our anniversary coincided with the OESAI conference.
Having been successfully placed among the industry leaders in the jurisdiction, we are now reaching out to the rest of the continent. We are trying to tap more business in the Indian Ocean and across Africa, where we have already set up subsidiaries in Kenya to service the East African market. Right now, we are also looking at opportunities in West Africa and eventually leading to a physical presence in one of these French-speaking countries.
4. How do you see the potential for Mauritius to become a reinsurance hub?
The authorities have this as one of their topmost priorities. By and large, I think that Mauritius has an appropriate infrastructure to help enable the reinsurance hub to develop. We have a very strong experience spanning in doing international business, and boasting of a good and conducive environment covering areas such as regulatory framework, banking sector, supply of skilled professionals, and the way the country is connected with the external world is playing for us.
I think the authorities should also be very careful about which type of players gets into the market where it has to be players of repute which the jurisdiction has anyway made sure there is. There is a need to be an alignment in terms of players’ strategies, that of the country, and of Africa’s development agenda.
