Har­dath Gen­er­al In­sur­ance Con­sul­tants Ltd (HGI), which be­gan op­er­a­tions in 1967, has been able to weath­er the storm over the years, es­pe­cial­ly dur­ing the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic.

Speak­ing about how the com­pa­ny has evolved, Se­u­nar­ine Har­dath, com­mer­cial lines man­ag­er and claims su­per­vi­sor told Sun­day Busi­ness Guardian that it first es­tab­lished an in­sur­ance agency on the East­ern Main Road in San­gre Grande, and the com­pa­ny, in­cor­po­rat­ed in 1998, ex­pand­ed its ser­vices and prod­uct of­fer­ings.

He said the com­pa­ny’s growth led to the open­ing of branch­es in Tu­na­puna (2008), Port of Spain (2017), and San Fer­nan­do this year.

“With the open­ing of the San Fer­nan­do branch this year, we un­der­stand that each re­gion has its unique chal­lenges and op­por­tu­ni­ties. By es­tab­lish­ing a pres­ence in San Fer­nan­do, we aim to pro­vide tai­lored so­lu­tions that res­onate with the lo­cal pop­u­lace.

“We be­lieve that the pro­vi­sion of in­sur­ance bro­ker­age ser­vices in the south has been un­der­served. With our new branch, HGI is set to bridge this gap, bring­ing a su­pe­ri­or lev­el of ser­vice and ex­per­tise in­to the re­gion,” he said.

Har­dath high­light­ed HGI’s clien­tele, which he now es­ti­mates at over 10,000, ranges from in­di­vid­u­als seek­ing home and mo­tor in­sur­ance to large com­mer­cial or­gan­i­sa­tions.  

He said, “The com­pa­ny has been in­stru­men­tal in as­sist­ing build­ing con­trac­tors with se­cur­ing com­plex in­sur­ance poli­cies, show­cas­ing its abil­i­ty to nav­i­gate chal­leng­ing in­sur­ance land­scapes suc­cess­ful­ly.”  

Ex­plain­ing the unique role of the in­sur­ance bro­ker­age he not­ed that HGI op­er­ates as an in­de­pen­dent in­ter­me­di­ary, fo­cus­ing on the clients’ needs first.  

“This ap­proach is akin to an at­tor­ney-client re­la­tion­ship, where the client’s best in­ter­est is para­mount. The com­pa­ny prides it­self on bal­anc­ing client needs, in­sur­er qual­i­ty, prod­uct avail­abil­i­ty and claim ser­vic­ing, en­sur­ing the best pos­si­ble pro­tec­tion at af­ford­able costs,” he men­tioned.

Hardarth un­der­scored that as HGI looks to the fu­ture, it re­mains com­mit­ted to em­brac­ing tech­no­log­i­cal ad­vance­ments and ex­plor­ing new mar­ket op­por­tu­ni­ties.  

Pan­dem­ic’s im­pact

Delv­ing in­to how the in­sur­ance com­pa­ny was able to mit­i­gate the ef­fects of the pan­dem­ic, Har­dath said like many busi­ness­es, HGI faced sig­nif­i­cant chal­lenges dur­ing this pe­ri­od, in­clud­ing a down­turn in sales and the con­se­quent im­pact.  

He said over­all, there was a drop in sales dur­ing the pan­dem­ic, which was mod­er­ate.

In­stead of lay­offs, the in­sur­ance ex­ec­u­tive out­lined that the com­pa­ny made a con­scious de­ci­sion to re­tain all staff, en­sur­ing that each mem­ber had fi­nan­cial sta­bil­i­ty in an un­sta­ble world.  

How­ev­er, the harsh re­al­i­ties of the pan­dem­ic ne­ces­si­tat­ed some tough de­ci­sions, he quick­ly stat­ed.

“We tem­porar­i­ly re­duced salaries and work­ing hours across the board, af­fect­ing every­one in the HGI fam­i­ly, in­clud­ing our di­rec­tors.

“This col­lec­tive sac­ri­fice was key to nav­i­gat­ing through the pan­dem­ic’s peak.”

Faced with un­prece­dent­ed chal­lenges, Har­dath said, HGI sought sup­port from its bank­ing part­ners, in­clud­ing mort­gage loan de­fer­rals—a move pre­vi­ous­ly un­chart­ed by the com­pa­ny.  

He not­ed that these fi­nan­cial ad­just­ments, while es­sen­tial, al­so im­pact­ed the com­pa­ny.

As it per­tains to re­turn­ing to pre-pan­dem­ic lev­els, he said while the com­pa­ny is not there yet, its sales are re­cov­er­ing nice­ly.

“The cri­sis ac­cel­er­at­ed our move to­wards re­mote work­ing, a tran­si­tion we had al­ready be­gun. This shift, while nec­es­sary, brought sig­nif­i­cant ad­di­tion­al costs, in­clud­ing in­vest­ment in tech­nol­o­gy for vir­tu­al meet­ings and home of­fice se­tups,” Har­dath ex­plained.

The pan­dem­ic al­so brought about hu­man re­source chal­lenges.

He cit­ed short­ages in staff, av­er­ag­ing be­tween ten per cent to 15 per cent week­ly for var­i­ous rea­sons, which put ad­di­tion­al pres­sure on the com­pa­ny’s re­main­ing team mem­bers, and tem­porar­i­ly af­fect­ed its stan­dard of ser­vice.  

“How­ev­er, our staff’s re­silience and un­der­stand­ing dur­ing these times have been noth­ing short of re­mark­able.”

Ris­ing costs in prop­er­ty, mo­tor in­sur­ance

Over the past year, there has been a no­tice­able in­crease in the cost of prop­er­ty and mo­tor in­sur­ance. Hardarth said the trend is part­ly due to the es­ca­lat­ing costs of rein­sur­ance, which all in­sur­ance com­pa­nies are re­quired to have to cov­er their busi­ness port­fo­lio with­in ac­cept­able ex­po­sure lim­its.  

In­creased rein­sur­ance costs are in­evitably passed on to the clients.

“For in­stance, back in 1995, the rate or cost per thou­sand for an in­di­vid­ual com­pre­hen­sive home in­sur­ance pol­i­cy ranged be­tween $4 and $5. Over time, these rates de­creased to be­tween $2 and $3.25. How­ev­er, with the in­creased fre­quen­cy and ris­ing sever­i­ty of hur­ri­canes and oth­er nat­ur­al dis­as­ters, these low­er rates have be­come un­sus­tain­able,” Har­dath dis­closed.

In the realm of mo­tor in­sur­ance, he fur­ther stat­ed there has been a sig­nif­i­cant in­crease in ve­hic­u­lar ac­ci­dents in the last two years, lead­ing to high­er-than-ex­pect­ed loss ex­pe­ri­ences for most in­sur­ers.  

“Com­pound­ing this is­sue is the in­creased cost of ve­hi­cle parts and ma­te­ri­als for re­pairs, which have risen sub­stan­tial­ly over the past two years. This com­bi­na­tion of fac­tors has im­pact­ed the claims ex­pe­ri­ence.  

“Many in­sur­ers are ex­pe­ri­enc­ing loss lev­els that are not ac­cept­able, prompt­ing a re­turn to more strin­gent un­der­writ­ing prac­tices. This shift may be per­ceived as an in­crease in the cost of mo­tor in­sur­ance prod­ucts. It is a nec­es­sary ad­just­ment to en­sure the sus­tain­abil­i­ty of in­sur­ance of­fer­ings in the face of evolv­ing risks and costs,” he re­vealed.

Proac­tive cy­ber­se­cu­ri­ty mea­sures

In an era where cy­ber­at­tacks are in­creas­ing­ly preva­lent, he posits that HGI recog­nis­es the para­mount im­por­tance of cy­ber­se­cu­ri­ty.  

“The pro­tec­tion of our staff and clients from such threats is a key pri­or­i­ty, and HGI has im­ple­ment­ed sev­er­al ro­bust mea­sures to en­sure safe­ty and se­cu­ri­ty in the dig­i­tal realm.”

Har­dath said at HGI, cy­ber­se­cu­ri­ty is not viewed as a one-time so­lu­tion but as an on­go­ing com­mit­ment as the com­pa­ny has in­vest­ed in state-of-the-art cy­ber­se­cu­ri­ty tech­nolo­gies to safe­guard its dig­i­tal in­fra­struc­ture. That in­cludes en­ter­prise-grade pro­tec­tion sys­tems to pro­tect sen­si­tive client in­for­ma­tion and in­ter­nal da­ta.

Recog­nis­ing that the cy­ber land­scape is ever-evolv­ing, he in­di­cat­ed that HGI is com­mit­ted to stay­ing ahead of the curve and the in­sur­ance com­pa­ny reg­u­lar­ly re­views and up­dates its cy­ber­se­cu­ri­ty poli­cies and in­fra­struc­ture to ad­dress new chal­lenges and tech­nolo­gies.  

“This proac­tive stance en­sures that HGI re­mains equipped to pro­tect against both cur­rent and fu­ture cy­ber threats,” he said.