President of Guardian Life Limited Eric Hosin looks across New Kingston from the top of the Guardian Centre on Trafalgar Road on November 13, 2017.
Guardian Life Limited, the second-largest insurance outfit in Jamaica, reckons it is doing well in a competitive market despite a reversal last year of a rapid profit climb in recent years.Bolstered by a significant take-up of shares in its Trinidad-based parent company Guardian Holdings Limited by NCB Financial Group, the Jamaican operation is banking on a marketing and business bounce from that partnership.

At the same time, the company, which made $4 billion in profit last year and closed the period with $66 billion in assets, is pursuing a $5-billion residential and corporate property build-out around its New Kingston head office over the next three years, determined to chart a new investment strategy to boost profits as corporate paper fails to bring the returns its investors have mandated.

Squeezing even small returns from an admittedly unprofitable new individual health product line and going aggressively after new business in what is regarded as a still underinsured Jamaican market round out the company’s arsenal laid out by Guardian President Eric Hosin in an interview with the Financial Gleaner.

In October, Guardian got the go-ahead from insurance regulator, the Financial Services Commission, to enter the individual health insurance market, and the No. 2 company is going after a line of the insurance business previously monopolised in the Jamaican market by No. 1 player, Sagicor Life.

Minority Guardian owner, NCB Financial Group, has not said much publicly about its design, being whispered in business circles, to deepen its ownership and control of Guardian Holdings, but already, Guardian company executives are relishing what is to come.

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