Brazil Takes a Seat at the Global Insurance Table

TAIPEI, Taiwan, Jul 14, 2008 (A. M. Best via COMTEX) -- ITU | Quote | Chart | News | PowerRating -- With its long overdue move to open its reinsurance market to foreign companies earlier this year, Brazil finally saw a torrent of investment in the developing sector.

Osvaldo Do Nascimento, executive director of Brazil?s Banco Itau S.A., a banking group that also has extensive life and nonlife insurance operations, took the opportunity to sell the country?s international outlook at the 44th annual seminar of the International Insurance Society in Taipei, Taiwan.

This is the first year Brazil has been represented at the IIS seminar, which Do Nascimento said marks the Brazilian government?s move earlier this year to open its market to outside competition.

Brazil, with 192 million citizens, is in need of a much larger insurance market than it now has, said Do Nascimento. In a country with historical problems combating inflation and high interest rates, the past few years have seen huge improvements in both, he said.

With an improving economy, fueled in part by rising prices in oil and metals, both of which Brazil has in abundance, the insurance market also is growing at increasing rates, he said.

Two trends that promise to change, and hopefully improve the insurance market in Brazil, are the rapid growth of Internet usage and a government drive to reduce poverty, known as the Bolsa Familia.

Brazil now has more than 41 million Internet users, said Do Nascimento. That means there are big changes under way with regard to how customers research and buy financial products, he said.

The Bolsa Familia program is designed to address a huge imbalance in wealth distribution throughout Brazil. Do Nascimento believes the program, which provides government coverage for the poor, along with a microinsurance drive to cover low-income people from specific risks (such as high utility bills), will bring more low-income families into the insurance market.

Do Nascimento said the development of Brazil?s insurance segment is roughly on a par with those of China, Russia and India. He said the four countries can learn much from each other as they work out the development of their insurance markets.

In all these countries, he said, distribution problems will be among the most difficult to solve.

(By David Pilla, international editor, BestWeek: David.Pilla@ambest.com)

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