The depression of the international and regional economies has changed the way the insurance industry operates, said Jacinto Martinez, vice president, sales, Sagicor.
"In the last five years, economic turbulence and technological developments have changed all elements of the market, whether it is a producer, consumer or service provider. We, in the insurance industry, have learnt the hard lessons; it is not about the product we create, but the people to whom we wish to sell. We do not design people for products, we design products for people," he said.
Martinez was speaking last Friday at a seminar on the Insurance Bill and global insurance industry hosted by the T&T Association of Insurance and Financial Advisers (TTAIFA) at the Capital Plaza, Port-of-Spain.
He said "one sneeze in the United States and China catches the cold and the Caribbean region catches a fever" as the entire global economy is integrated.
"Despite the stabilisation that has occurred over the last five years, the global economy has not recovered from the meltdown of the US economy in 2008. The US economy is still surviving from life support of Federal Reserves and has not yet rebuilt the momentum of pre-September 2008. Its hope for a growth rate of three per cent was recently reduced to 2.3 per cent. China's projected growth rate is 7.7 per cent, which given our projection of two per cent would seem quite high. Yet, this is China's worst economic performance in 23 years," he said.
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