Group health and life insurer Canopy Insurance Limited, backed by two powerful conglomerates, GraceKennedy Limited and Musson Group. was officially launched last week.
The venture is a 50/50 partnership between the two companies, with each entity equally represented on the company’s board of management.
The newest player in the sector is seeking to take market share from dominant regional players such as Sagicor Life Jamaica, owned by Sagicor Financial, and Guardian Life, owned and controlled by NCB Financial Group through the Guardian Holdings group,
Sagicor Group Jamaica reported gross premiums of $41 billion in 2018 while Guardian Life’s reported intake was $13 billion.
The latest industry data published by the Financial Services Commission for the period ending March 2019 valued the life market at $328 billion by assets.
With Canopy, the life market now has seven players, including NCB Insurance and Scotia Jamaica Life.
According to reports, Canopy has already secured a client base of 10,000 individuals, 6,000 of whom are aligned to its owners GraceKennedy and Musson Group.
Sean Scott, who heads the company as Managing Director, is reporting as having said that they want to take a big swing at the market and with GraceKennedy and Musson been large, established companies, they have a strong commitment to this business.
He noted further that there are only three players in the health and wellness segment, so there is nothing that should prevent them from taking equal share of the market over the next couple of years, leveraging the networks of the GraceKennedy and Musson groups in Jamaica.
CEO of GraceKennedy, and Chairman of the joint venture Don Wehby for his part noted that they were celebrating a relationship that started many decades ago, as GraceKennedy’s relationship with the Musson Group goes back to the days of Carlton Alexander and Desmond Blades.
Canopy he said started with ambitious goals, with both GK and Musson taking a look at the value and service received in exchange for the premiums their companies pay annually, to provide group health and life insurance benefits to their respective employees.
The research showed a large market that was underserved and that presented an opportunity! And after careful and strategic analysis of the group health and life insurance landscape in Jamaica – Canopy was born, he remarked.
“We knew we had to ensure that our value proposition was first-class, and so we embarked on a journey to create a more innovative, more consumer-centric, and more solution-oriented service provider. We also had to ensure that we embraced all stakeholders, making us the obvious choice for healthcare in Jamaica. The decision was made to satisfy the Jamaican broker community and the country’s employers longing for greater choice, with a more modern approach to health insurance administration” Remarked Wehby.
GK and Musson are very confident that this company has great potential, and that it will do great things, he said, noting that he was very excited about this partnership between the Musson Group and GraceKennedy, and that it will be a game-changing initiative.
Canopy’s Board of Directors also include:
Sean Scott, Managing Director, Gerard Johnson (Chairman, Investment & Loan Committee), Lynval Freeman (Chairman, Audit Committee), Professor Archibald McDonald (Chairman, Conduct Review Committee), Andrew Messado, Paul Scott (rotating chairmanship), Nicholas Scott, Melanie Subratie, Steven Whittingham, and, Sharon Donaldson, Grace Burnett and Company Secretary, Gail Moss-Solomon.