ACE South Africa road show kick starts industry introductions

International insurance and reinsurance group ACE Insurance, with offices in more than 50 countries and a global workforce exceeding 9 000, entered the South African insurance market in July 2006 making this country part of its global network.

Scott Pickering, who has previously headed the group's New Zealand and several South East Asian operations, is CEO of ACE Insurance South Africa (ACE SA). He has watched the country's economic progress over the last decade with interest: "South Africas economic progress over the last 10 years has been impressive, and we see an opportunity to leverage our global footprint by offering risk solutions to the corporate sector, particularly those with pan-African and global ambitions."

To launch its domestic marketing campaign, ACE SA embarked on a month-long series of industry road shows in September aimed at introducing the ACE team to a wide audience of the top brokerage firms in the South African market.

In addition to the Johannesburg head offices of major industry players, the road show covered companies based in the other key centres of the country: Cape Town, Durban and Port Elizabeth.

The success of this initiative is underscored by the broad range of questions that were posed by attendees during the presentations. This effort has already started to yield positive results, with a stream of submissions and new business enquiries, as well as queries about ACEs product range, handled by the office.

Pickering comments, "I'm delighted with the enthusiastic response we've received from the South African market. The recently completed road shows have been an excellent forum for us to communicate our value proposition, whilst at the same time giving us a great opportunity to interact face to face with our key producers."

The road shows highlighted organisational strengths and efficiencies particularly in the areas of property coverage, large general liability, export products liability, professional indemnity, directors and officers liability and accident and health product offerings.

ACE SA's market entry strategy is to drive new business by focusing on its primary products. In addition to this, the road shows were aimed at creating strategic industry alliances.

The well-timed, recent A+ credit rating awarded to ACE SA by international Global Credit Ratings (GCR) coincided with the launch of the road shows. The FAnews (Financial & Advisory news), a bi-monthly business magazine targeted at the South African financial advisor market, published an article on ACE SA's credit rating in which the managing director of the rating agency, Global Credit Rating, Melanie Brown said: "ACE South Africa has a capable management team with both a track record from past experiences and well thought out strategies. The breadth and depth of the management team is also considered appropriate, with plans in place to broaden and deepen the team as the company grows."

Denis Ternent, Glenrand M.I.B. National Managing Director for Corporate Risk Services, is one of the industry role-players who are happy about the new entrant: "Glenmib welcomes the arrival of ACE in South Africa, its presence in the market brings with it much-needed capacity and the international footprint is a great added benefit."