"DELTA GENERALI is an Italian company with 2000 Serbians and one Italian," this is how its leader described the company in the beginning of our meeting at the Belgrade headquarters. The mentioned Italian is no other than Mr. Andrea SIMONCELLI, President and CEO of the Serbian subsidiary of the Italian group GENERALI, who has been running the company since 2011.

"I came here knowing very little about Serbia as a country, and, why not admit this, with some biases," started SIMONCELLI the story of his Serbian odyssey. "My biases were very soon contradicted by reality and I have discovered a country full of potential and opportunities. More so, I was delighted to see that Delta Generali was a well-built company, where my predecessor had done a great job," he continued.

Arriving in Serbia, SIMONCELLI found a company equipped with a very good sales network. He assumed the role of building up an insurance culture in this company, to determine its sales people not only to sell, but also to sell according to a proper underwriting policy. "Serbia is a country with a very good educational system, providing human resources of very high quality. It is easy to find very skilled employees for the actuarial, IT or reporting activities and this made everything easier for me," said our interlocutor. However, coming around to a new philosophy of selling was not an easy process. "We have invested a lot in training because people needed to understand the entire circuit of the insurance business in order to make the difference between selling insurance and simply selling any other product. In this business it doesn't matter only to sell, but to choose the right client. This is why we have learned to analyze the client, which is not so easy when working in a market with such a short insurance background." Being directly involved in all stages, traveling around the country to personally meet the employees, learning the Serbian language to communicate more effectively, but also out of respect for his colleagues, SIMONCELLI succeeded step by step to implement in the company a new conception, making the transition from performance assessment in terms of volume, to quality and profitability valuation. "A combined ratio lower than 100% should be the new "catechism" of any insurer, for each contract concluded," sais SIMONCELLI, adding that "being a profitable company is in the best interest of our clients because this way they can be sure that we have a sound business and we are able to pay the claims."

As a result of all these efforts, DELTA GENERALI has today a very good reputation, being perceived as number one in the market although in terms of premium volume ranks second. The company ended the year 2012 with gross written premiums of EUR 108 million, almost 4% up as compared with the previous year, while in local currency its growth rate was of about 13%. About 25% of its business comes from the life insurance segment for which in 2012 the premiums volume went up by 14% in EUR (23.8% in RSD).

How does SIMONCELLI describe the Serbian business environment? "Serbia is a very polarized market, with about 90% of GDP coming from Belgrade and Vojvodina, which are obviously more developed than the rest of the country. There is not a real middle class, meaning a relevant group of people earning over EUR 30,000 per year. Instead, there is a large portion of the population who earn between EUR 5,000 and 20,000 per year. This means that for many Serbians life is not easy and this fact is strongly influencing our retail business.

In this context, an increase of 1-1.5% in GDP per year is insufficient for Serbia to reduce differences compared with the developed western economies and to provide a better living standard to its citizens. The country needs to grow faster and in this respect some of the actions undertaken by the new government are encouraging. Lately we have seen significantly lower inflation rates (a 4 - 5% estimate for 2013), the external debt of the country is still small in relative terms, and the local currency more stable. Unfortunately, the country has to pay a high price for its financial stability in what the unemployment is concerned, meaning that a lot of the pressure lies on the populations' shoulders."

Andrea SIMONCELLI

Born in Rome, Andrea SIMONCELLI (61): married, one son, graduated with distinction from the law school at the state University in Rome in 1975, and holding a Masters Degree in Economics, also with distinction, from Luiss University in Rome in 1976. He developed an international career, for 13 years holding different top management positions in the Italian's car manufacturer FIAT companies. In 1990, he made a transition to Fiat's insurance department and became Deputy CEO and Chief Financial Officer of the insurance company TORO in Turin, which was acquired by GENERALI Group in 2003. He was President of FIAT Insurance in Poland in 2003, then President of FIAT Seguros in Brazil, and later President of the French insurance company LE CONTINENT in Paris. Since 2011 SIMONCELLI has been working and living with his family in Serbia, where he is CEO and Chairman of the Executive Committee of DELTA GENERALI Osiguranje Serbia and Chairman of Delta Generali Osiguranje in Montenegro. In 2012, he was elected President of the Italian-Serbian Chamber of Commerce.