Although held digitally, the Croatian Insurance Days once again brought together leading people in the insurance profession from the national, regional and European levels, and were organized with the support of the Office of the President of the Republic of Croatia and under the auspices of the Ministry of Finance.
This year's edition of the leading professional event was opened by mr. sc. Slaven DOBRIC, President of the Management Board of HUO. Speaking about the challenges facing the insurance industry, he emphasized: "We are in a demanding year, from pandemics and earthquakes to legislative changes, but I must proudly point out that, regardless of the impact of negative circumstances on business, revenue and profitability, as an industry quite stable and even brave, we have responded to all these challenges. Despite certain physical limitations, our industry has maintained business continuity in such a way that we have managed to provide adequate service and protection to our clients throughout this time, and to reduce the health risks for employees to a minimum. We reacted quickly to the earthquake and paid over 200 million kuna in damages and resolved more than 6,000 claims".
In the introductory part, Zdravko ZRINUSIC, State Secretary of the Ministry of Finance, also addressed the participants: "The time of crisis brings risks and opportunities at the European level, and I believe that this is where this industry will find itself and that we will emerge from this crisis even stronger. The insurance market is a significant factor and an important lever in terms of generating growth and stability, because the stability of the financial system contributes to a stronger and better credit rating of the Republic of Croatia".
The first block of the presentation was opened by Dr. sc. Ante ZIGMAN, President of the Governing Council of the Croatian Agency for Supervision of Financial Services (HANFA) on the topic of consumer - the focus of the insurance market in the new normal and pointed out the following: "Liquidity and solvency of insurers to satisfactory the levels, and insurance companies start of the crisis met with median with a solvency ratio almost twice the regulatory minimum, which has greatly facilitated their absorption of previous market instabilities ". On the topic of consumer relations, Zigman emphasized that "a transparent and fair relationship with consumers is the key to maintaining trust, especially in the circumstances of the new normal, and that is why Hanfa adopted Guidelines for conducting insurance business in October to further protect the interests of service users. insurance companies, primarily through communication with clients during contractual information and communication during and after the claims processing procedure".
This was followed by presentations by two foreign guests, Gabriel BERNARDINO, President of EIOPA, the European Insurance and Occupational Pensions Authority, and Michaela KOLLER, Director General of the European Insurance Association, who spoke about the market challenges of the insurance industry from a European and global perspective, given the new circumstances.
"Without a doubt, the pandemic is the biggest global problem of this century, adjustments are difficult for all industries, but ours reacted and adapted quickly. The most important thing for us was to maintain business continuity, ensure the stability of the sector and try to reduce the impact on customers and their business. All these measures have been well received and at European level the results have been satisfactory, and new digital tools have helped us," said BERNARDINO, while KOLLER pointed out: "At this point, it is difficult to conclude what the real impact of the pandemic will be on the insurance industry, as it depends on two factors, how long the pandemic will last and how quickly the European economy will recover. That is why it is important to think long-term and strategically with the creation of legislation and a regulatory framework that will be easily applicable at both European and national level.
After the presentation of leading people in the insurance industry at the European level, there was a panel discussion on the Croatian insurance market, the impact of the crisis on the insurance industry, the Zagreb earthquake, the importance of property insurance and the future of the insurance industry in the context of the new normal. At an interesting and dynamic panel, opinions were exchanged by the leaders of five insurance companies: mr. sc. Ivana BRATANIC (Euroherc osiguranje dd), Mario CARINI (Generali osiguranje dd), Jasminka Horvat MARTINOVIC, (Wiener osiguranje Vienna Insurance Group dd), Marin MATIJACA (Triglav osiguranje dd) and Davor TOMASKOVIC, (Croatia osiguranje dd).
Davor TOMASKOVIC, President of the Management Board of Croatia osiguranje, pointed out that they were more affected by the pandemic than the earthquake. "As many as 2,500 of our people worked from home, which showed the serious flexibility that the company had, and although we were not ready for that venture, everything worked great. Despite the challenges, we have made a significant step in the digitalization of business and customer service, improved online channels and launched Laqo, the first 100% digital domestic insurance. The earthquake brought us a huge influx of damage, more than 5,000 have been reported so far, and reports are still coming," said TOMASKOVIC, noting that "made a big step forward in the issue of franchises and comprehensive insurance, and met the needs of the insured in terms of recognition of claims and amounts."
" We all planned the year differently, but in the first quarter things changed completely, and the possibility of adjustment was extremely important in that situation. We had as much as 70 percent more calls in March than usual, we went out on the field, reacted quickly, showed our clients that we were here and provided them with support," said Jasminka Horvat MARTINOVIC, President of the Management Board of Wiener Insurance Vienna Insurance Group.
With the continuity of excellent business results despite the new circumstances, the President of the Management Board of Euroherc osiguranje, mr. sc. Ivana BRATANIC emphasized that the first quarter forced everyone to do their best, both technologically and in terms of personnel, organization and finances. " However, we have shown that we work in an industry that is resilient, and although each of us was shaken by this, it also had an educational note if we look through the prism of financial literacy of Croatian citizens and the importance of insurance protection," said BRATANIC.
Marin MATIJACA, President of the Management Board of Triglav osiguranje, notes that digitalization has made their business easier, and the implementation of digital signatures has made it easier for them to comply with the measures, while achieving good business results. "I am proud that our insurance market is global, we often underestimate ourselves compared to more developed countries, but we have shown that with our resources, knowledge and commitment we can operate normally even in a pandemic," he said.
Mario CARINI, CEO of Generali Insurance, claims that there is more uncertainty at the moment than at the beginning of the pandemic. "This has been a very unusual year so far: we have managed to finalize two acquisitions which was a challenging process given the circumstances associated with the pandemic, and we are therefore strengthening our market presence. The new way of working will become an integral part of our business as we notice changes in the way customers approach us while our priorities are to accelerate our digitalization program as well as our organizational transformation," said CARINI.
Although digital tools have made business easier and enabled customers to do everything digitally, industry leaders agreed that human contact is still important to customers in our market and therefore a new challenge for the industry is to find the right combination and meet the needs of all customers. The panelists agreed that it is necessary to continue working on increasing the financial literacy of citizens, which is also a mission on which insurers have been working proactively for a long time.
After the group panel, Michal KOPYT, Head of Technology at the consulting and auditing company Ernst & Young, spoke about the transformation, modernization and digitalization of business processes and their impact on business in a block presentation, while Imrich LOZSI, from consulting agency for actuarial services Tools4F, spoke about the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the entire insurance industry.
In the last section, presentations on the subject of compensation of non-pecuniary damage as well as newspapers in the area spoke Vitomir BOIC, judge of the County Court in Velika Gorica and prof. dr. sc. Marko BARETIC, professor at the Faculty of Law, University of Zagreb, who emphasized that "There was no public discussion with the interested public when adopting the Supreme Court's Legal Understanding, which is a common practice in democratic societies before making decisions that will predictably affect a wide range of entities, and that the Supreme Court's Legal Understanding should not be retroactive., according to the established practice of the Croatian Constitutional Court and the Court of Justice, the EU demands retroactive interpretation of regulations and since this would cause significant difficulties for entities that acted in good faith, but that the application should refer only to harmful events after the adoption of the Legal Understanding.
Presentations from the Croatian Insurance Days 2020 are available on the Conference website.
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