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Insure Direct steps into the international brokerage market with new brand identity

DUBAI — Insure Direct (Brokers) LLC, an established, yet low-profile, brokerage house is charting its own course to grab a niche place under the world’s insurance sun. Encouraged by its successful merger with Independent Risk Solutions BV, a Rotterdam-based specialist risk provider, in 2009 and the synergy it has created, Insure Direct has undertaken a major re-branding operation that is designed to pitchfork it into the league of international players.

Recently, it announced the launch of Brokerage World Solutions Limited, or BWS, a Maltese-registered group holding company to bring under one roof more than 200 years of combined top-level insurance management experience and expertise honed in diverse markets.

BWS, says Kenneth Maw, the Group’s President and CEO and the man who built up Insure Direct since 2000, in an exclusive interview to Khaleej Times, is particularly well positioned to make rapid strides to provide risk solutions to strategically important sectors such as marine, energy and other related specialist areas.

Excerpts from the interview:

What are the reasons behind launching a new brokerage company to enter the international insurance market despite the fact that global financial crisis has hit the insurance industry?

Well, first of all, the insurance industry did not cause the financial crisis, but was certainly a victim of the consequences. However, overall the industry has weathered the financial storm fairly decently.

Our decision to launch Brokerage World Solutions is based on strong fundamentals. After a decade of successful regional operations as Insure Direct, last year we took the opportunity to merge with Independent Risk Solutions BV (IRS) in the Netherlands to give us a sizeable footprint in the continental European market. We are now in a position to define new products that our expanded operational sectors demand.

What are the key areas of the insurance or reinsurance sector that you plan to cover under the BWS banner?

Both Insure Direct and IRS BV have proven track record of exceptional brokerage operations in our chosen sectors. We will continue to build on them under Brokerage World Solutions and forge rapidly into key sectors such as marine, energy, construction, financial and specialist professional skills and related liability insurances.

The alliance arms us with a leading business edge and expanding footprint across continents. Our Bahrain operation is, in addition, well geared to serve the regional reinsurance space and reach out beyond the GCC to cover the whole Middle East and North African region.

What are the factors that drive your growth strategy now that you have entered the stage to compete with established players?

We believe that BWS, which is essentially a product of transcontinental marriage between two established brands, will provide the right platform for us to bid for and retain large corporate accounts as well as major projects. Our strategy is to leverage this inherent strength and maximise penetration of the new market by offering flexible, industry specific products. The merger that brought together Insure Direct’s brand in the Middle East and IRS BV’s strength in high net worth areas such as marine and energy-related industries from its base in Rotterdam will provide the necessary muscle to the venture.

The BWS brand will emphasise our combined strength and international market reach. Our aim is to develop a powerful brokerage that will pull all of this together, where we can identify ourselves as an international company — not just a GCC or a Dutch company, but a global contender that can pitch our brand against big league players like Marsh, Willis and Aon.

What market opportunities do you see ahead and what are your immediate plans to tap them?

The UK market is top on our radar. We recently launched Brokerage World Solutions UK (BWS UK), which will be jointly owned and managed by London-based Oxygen Holdings plc.

Our partnership with Oxygen Holdings plc will help expand our existing Middle East and European footprint into the British market. There are also going to be opportunities for other mergers and acquisitions down the line, for the simple reason that some of the smaller brokers might find it more difficult to compete, and their best way forward may be to consider merging their operation with another. We have seen the incorporation of HSBC’s insurance broking operations into Marsh, which removes a competitor from the market. Now that they are consolidated into the Marsh monolith, new opportunities for small and mid-sized brokers have opened up.

Why London?

London is the modern insurance industry’s birthplace and remains the most fertile ground for the insurance and reinsurance sectors to flourish. But it is also an impossibly competitive and increasingly challenging place for successful operators, especially smaller brokers and new-comers. And over the past decade global competition has also increased, along with the surge in international trade.

Insure Direct is already well established in the GCC. What are your plans for this region?

The Middle East insurance market is in the region of $5 billion in annual premiums and is highly important for BWS. For well over a decade Insure Direct has been able to build business regionally and we plan to continue building on that success, leveraging our new strengths under the BWS brand to enlarge our range of solutions and services.

Currently we have offices in Bahrain, established a joint venture in Qatar, and are looking at other similar opportunities in Saudi Arabia and Egypt. This is an extremely competitive market but it is also one with enough room for players like us. With a lot of hard work, we hope to capture a significant share by leveraging our new strengths under the BWS brand.

Of course, we do not want to limit ourselves to the Middle East, since we see opportunities to grow in the Far East and even possibly the US. As I see it, we have everything to play for.

What are the challenges you see in your ambitious plans to go global?

We have to be pragmatic about such business plans. So, I would rather say we are right now entering the international market as against going global. We realise the magnitude of the challenge we’ve taken on by choosing to compete with the big league players.

We are already among the leading local or regional insurance brokers. Together, we understand our markets probably better than our multi-national competitors. So, whether it is the Gulf and the Middle East or continental Europe and the UK, we are well prepared to bid for new business. You may be interested to know that our combined operations now handle in excess of $150 million in annual premiums with total team strength of 70 persons.

What would you say are the strengths and weaknesses of BWS as you contemplate the task ahead?

We offer integral transparency to everything we do and our team of professionals delivers cost-effective and comprehensive risk transfer and advisory solutions. But our true strength lies in the large number of experienced management executives now working as one under one roof.

As for weaknesses, I think it is more in the market than in us. We will be constantly fine-tuning our new venture to comply with emerging situations in today’s volatile market. We will work to convince potential clients that we have the capability to brokerage business ourselves, without the need for them to pay multiple commissions. That’s the only way to capture new market.

muzaffarrizvi@khaleejtimes.com