For the six months ended April 30, 2021, Scotia Group Jamaica reported a net interest income of J$4.5 billion.

This is a fine performance under the stewardship of its CEO Audrey Tugwell-Henry and signals a fightback by a Scotia, that in recent times, lost its pre-eminence to NCB.

A contributing factor here is the progress made by its insurance arm headed by Dr Adrian Stokes.

Scotia Jamaica Life Insurance Company Limited increased gross premiums written by 8 per cent year on year. Not bad during the COVID pandemic which has seen the economy contract by over 15 per cent.

Dr Stokes sees opportunities as Jamaica remains largely underinsured. This business line continues to be a growing source of Scotia Group Jamaica’s non-interest revenue.

Jamaica’s insurance business has hugely been negatively impacted by the COVID crisis and Scotia Insurance is no exception.  Its insurances revenues for the period under review decreased by J$577 million or 30.3 per cent to J$1.3 billion due to the reduction in premium income stemming from the pandemic as well as lower actuarial reserve releases.

Dr Stokes draws attention to it not being all bad news with significant growth in its underlying insurance business for the financial year.

Speaking at a media briefing he said: “One important growth area we are seeing in Scotia Jamaica Life Insurance is in the area of the approved retirement scheme. That product and the linkage with our overall strategy of growing this in the pension space has been delivering significant dividends for both our customers and Scotia Group.”

“In fact, we saw a 36 per cent contribution year on year  with Scotia Bridge and we are the leaders in the market when it comes to contributions in the approved retirement space.”

Dr Adrian Stokes, who is both Senior Vice President and Head of Insurance and Wealth Management at Scotia Group Jamaica, further unpacked the insurance company’s numbers.

He points out that when the cyclical component of Scotia’s premium income as it relates to the insurance that is sold to customers taking credit in branches of the retail bank is considered and those premiums are removed, what is seen is gross premium income for individual life insurance products is up 11 per cent which is very strong growth during a pandemic.

“When we take a look at Scotia Bridge, it is growing at a robust pace and is helping to power our overall contribution from our customers. We are very happy with the underlying strength of our business.

 “The synergy between the insurance business and the retail bank should be noted and we have a very good product development road map. Later this year we will bring two products to market. These will power the growth in our gross premium income for years to come,” said Dr Stokes.

Turning to the issue of whether Scotia will engage in more bancassurance as a way to extract further synergies in the insurance division, the group champions its flagship bancassurance product, Scotia Mint.

Dr Stokes declared that bancassurance speaks to how the Group distributes products and close alignment with the retail bank. He proclaimed that in terms of its bancassurance model, Scotia’s sales productivity makes it among the best in the industry. A universal life product will be launched later this year. Insurance protection remains a key part of Scotia’s value proposition for the holistic approach that is taken for Scotia Group customers.