FARID SABER
ASST. GROUP CEO Gulf Insurance Group
“The political situation in a number of the MENA countries can prove difficult to “navigate
With over 20 years experience working in the insurance industry, Farid Saber joined the Gulf Insurance Group with the sole intention of enhancing a first-class service and achieving the group’s vision, ‘To be the most admired insurance brand in the MENA Region.’
It was just over two years ago that Farid Saber was lured away from AIG insurance to become assistant Group CEO at Gulf Insurance Group (gig). His previous experience with a number of firms within Kuwait and the GCC made him the perfect candidate to oversee the group’s ongoing expansion in the Middle East.
Established in 1962, ‘gig’ is listed on the Boursa Kuwait and has two main shareholders. The KIPCO Group, a holding company based in the MENA region and Fairfax Financial Holdings Ltd, who both collectively own 85% of the company. As Farid pointed out, it is thanks to this strong financial backing that ‘gig’ is able to aggressively pursue its expansion plans.
“Fairfax Holdings is based in Canada but has interests in a number of countries including the US, Europe, Latin America and China. They are our technical support and advise us on our daily business, and it is this support from our shareholders that is really helping us to grow in the region.”
With a mandate from their shareholders to achieve a rather substantial 10% growth year on year, the company’s expansion is divided into two areas. As well as the normal organic growth, the group is also very active in acquisitions and, over the past 10 years, a new business has been added to the ‘gig’ family almost every year - the latest direct acquisition being AIG Turkey in 2017. Although this kind of process generates a great deal of value, by bringing in new skills and opening new markets, there remain a number of considerable challenges in the region, as Farid explained.
“The political situation in a number of the MENA countries can prove difficult to navigate,” says Farid. “We have interests in Iraq, Syria, Algeria, Egypt, Turkey and this, obviously, creates a bit of a risk for us in terms of growth and managing our resources on the ground. However, we are also present in some expanding markets such as Kuwait, Bahrain, Jordan, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE, so it is really just a question of managing interests carefully and individually.”
Regulators
Many of these countries vary wildly in their regulations and, therefore, trying to expand via digital channels can also prove difficult. With this in mind, ‘gig’ is constantly trying to reach out, in order to open up these channels, which Farid believes can only have a positive impact.
“We are always working closely with the regulators and a large number of our CEOs are
active in both their local communities and local insurance federations, to try and influence change.”
‘gig’ also takes a pro-active role in training individuals when entering a new market. With people skills often lacking, the group prefer to train from the ground up and offer intensive programmes to bring individuals up to their required standard.
With the insurance industry currently experiencing significant change in the region, especially thanks to the new digital transformation and the growth of online comparison websites, Farid and his team are heavily focused on this area.
“
We want to deliver on a policy as
soon as possible and even pay a claim within
“minutes
Digital
“The company is obviously keen to move in that direction as quickly as possible but, in this region, it can be rather challenging. It is not just the customers who need to adapt but we need to transform all our operations and, whether it is claims handling, claims settlement or underwriting, each and every piece of the organisation has to change simultaneously. We want to deliver on a policy as soon as possible and even pay a claim within minutes, but insurance companies are not as fast as banks to cope with such change. For insurance companies to reach that same level of providing a digital customer experience is a major undertaking. We do plan to fast track this and the most important thing is having the teams on the ground to cope with the changes.”
‘gig’ has a substantial geographical presence in the MENA region and although there are many large competitors also in operation, these are very tightly linked to their head offices abroad and do not have the freedom to work in the market in the same way.
“We have actual subsidiaries that are
incorporated in the country,” says Farid. “This is why we rank as the market leader in Kuwait, Bahrain and Jordan. Because we are major players in these countries, that gives us a lot of flexibility in terms of understanding the market and being able to adapt, so we can move faster than the multinational companies.”
‘gig’ has also built a solid number of partnerships in the region with their reinsurance providers. According to Farid, trust is the primary factor here, along with steering clear of unrated companies.
Shareholders
“We take a longer-term view on the whole situation and prefer to stick with who we know and trust. In our business that is key – the trust and relationship with your partners are paramount.”
Thanks to its strong financial position, ‘gig’ often takes a stake, or shareholding interest, in their partners, in order to give them more stability in the relationship as well as offering more leverage.
This has also been the case with the technology boom, where the company has attempted to partner with firms that are more insure tech orientated. Several start-ups have been targeted and investments have been made, in order to help focus and grow their digital distribution channels.
“It’s incredible when you think how quickly we adapted to cloud services, where even our new business in Iraq is already operating via this service,” says Farid. “It gives us the flexibility and control to manage our businesses much more efficiently and it does not require a huge investment.”
Farid and his team certainly have plenty of challenges ahead of them.
The lack of regulation means many unscrupulous firms are appearing and, with the insurance business becoming so much easier to access, this could be a recipe for disaster unless changes are made.
As Farid points out, “We cannot have laws from the 1950s or 1980s regulating businesses in 2020. There are many small companies who like to create a lot of noise but really have very little to say.”
Luckily Farid and his team are ideally placed to be a guiding light through all these changes and, thanks to the backing of solid financial institutions, as well as years of experience, they look to have all the bases covered.
But Farid offers a sound piece of advice for those looking for an insurer.
“The most important thing I would say to customers, or clients, is that when they select their insurance company, they need to look beyond the pricing. Consider the financial strength of the organisation you are dealing with.”
Guy Carpenter is proud to have a longstanding relationship
with ‘gig’. Under the leadership of Mr Khaled Saoud Abdul Aziz Al Hasan and his management team, ‘gig’ has developed into one of the largest and most diversified insurance groups in the MENA region Massimo Reina, CEO Continental Europe & MENA, Guy Carpenter