Insurer ready for disaster
TOWER Insurance has plans to align New Zealand’s $NZ20million ($F27.42m) Weather Ready Pacific initiative to its ongoing business of protecting assets of businesses and individuals in Fiji and the Pacific.
Speaking in Suva at the opening of the company’s new Pacific hub “Valenicina” last week, Tower board chairperson Michael Stiassny said the company considered itself “a tried-and-true Pacific business, just as much as we are a New Zealand one”.
“Just last week the New Zealand
government announced the Weather Ready Pacific initiative, a $20m investment aimed at strengthening Pacific readiness for severe weather events,” Mr Stiassny said.
“At Tower, preparedness and protection are two things we are very passionate about.
“As an insurer with 150-year history in the Pacific, we look forward to discussing how Tower can contribute to this initiative with our stakeholders in New Zealand, Fiji and the other Pacific countries we operate in, in the months ahead.”
Mr Stiassny said the company has taken great strides in Fiji during his time as chair person, from launching Fiji’s first online insurance service, My Tower, to its innovative parametric insurance product in partnership with the United Nations and now the opening of its leading Suva operational centre.
“And in the face of our changing climate, insurance will continue to play a vital role in safeguarding the personal and economic resilience of not only Fiji but, New Zealand and the wider Pacific.
“It’s a role our teams take very seriously. When it comes to protecting our customers and communities, they are relentless.”
“Valenicina” is the heart of Tower’s Pacific operations and features “the latest in workplace technology” and houses Tower’s 250 local employees who help support Fiji and Tower’s other businesses in New Zealand, Samoa, American Samoa, the Cook Islands and Tonga.
Mr Stiassny spoke at the Suva hub opening ceremony, alongside Minister of Finance Professor Biman Prasad and Tower chief executive officer Blair Turnbull.
Meanwhile, the company is developing a new payment platform with Swiss company CelsiusPro and the United Nations to allow for rapid payouts of its parametric products, according to Mr Turnbull.
“It’ll have a leading capability around payments, and that’s what’s really important because parametric, if an event happens, and a customer is impacted, we want to pay out very quickly, literally in a matter of one or two days. And so having that technology platform is really important and we now have that,” Mr Turnbull said.
“At the moment we’ve been testing it with about 750 customers (in Fiji and Tonga), and we’re now ready to scale it up.”