Strategic Insurance risk advice rescues at-risk victims as it transforms corporate life insurance

Lotus Hydro PLC, a specialist in clean energy, teamed up with insurance trail blazer Strategic Insurance Brokers (Sib) to provide an unprecedented life, plus health insurance and critical illness cover to Lotus Hydro employees. In short, it is life, plus plus. 

“We discharged our social responsibility being able to pay the next of kin of employees such as the late Mr. Liyanage a life changing payment when tragedy struck, and Mr. Liyanage passed away in an accident,” said Lotus Hydro MD Menaka Athukorale and Sib Head of Sales and Operations Rupika Tennakoon.

Liyanage who was an Executive grade employee at Lotus, passed away suddenly under tragic circumstances, leaving a young family with two children virtually destitute. 

Sib, with Lotus, has made insurance an experience corporates actually use. This is quite the contrast to insurance avoidance, the norm, because most companies feel insurance is a burden that unfairly weighs them down, and in turn their employees. 

The initial insurance scheme for Lotus Hydro PLC, which was a health cover only, was extended to a life plus health, and critical illness cover on the recommendation of Sib. The broker company offered variety of schemes and premium payment options to the management of Lotus. 

Menaka Athukorale recommended and decided to take the optimum scheme for a marginal additional premium, which made the payment to the late Liyanage’s bereaved family doubly possible. 

Sib’s risk advice to Lotus Hydro PLC is an elegant model to expand access to insurance, while prioritising consumers’ needs. Administrative red tape has been cut to non-existent levels. 

“Your institution did everything to process the payment and did not put me in any kind of difficulty in this regard. I was only asked to come and collect the cheque,” said the recent recipient, late Liyanage’s wife. 

“We are reshaping an old dinosaur of an industry that resisted evolving,” says Sib Director Indrajith Fernando. 

This assertion is borne out by the fact that most Sri Lankan employers do not have comprehensive covers that take life, health and critical illness cover, all within their scope.

 Sib offered a package that an employer could afford and use, due to the multiple payment options that the employer could choose from.

“Corporate customers were not getting the user friendly experience they want. When they seek to protect their employees, they get rigid and cumbersome plans that to top everything off, make things very difficult for customers when it comes to claim time. We are turning that around,” says Fernando. Sib has managed to penetrate a monolithic and dull industry standard where consumers trust has vanished due to administrative hurdles and questionable practices. ‘Our driven team has come up with an excellent alternative in providing corporate employee cover. I am confident in their success and in setting new standards for insurance at scale,” says Fernando. 

The payment to Liyanage’s wife was facilitated by Sib and made by Allianz, Softlogic insurance, within a day of submitting the necessary documents.

The recipient was so grateful she promptly wrote an appreciation to Lotus and Sib, in which she among other things, says that she wishes Sib all strength to carry out the scheme well into the future. She emphasises that all the work was done by the insurers, and she as a result, was secure in the thought that her child’s future and education would be looked after.

Sib works equally well for big as well as small. 

For instance, Sib has for the third time in a row, been awarded the National Reinsurance program for the National Natural Disaster Cover (NNDIS), along with the other competitive bids which had already been submitted and awarded, for which business had been placed functionally by Sib. 

Of all of the aforementioned covers it is difficult for Strategic Insurance to decide which is best in terms of importance, but the NNDIS, Combine Retrocession, Strikes Riots and Civil Commotions All Risk Cover, and the Terrorism top up cover are significant in terms of size and priority. 

The sums insured become incrementally large ending at 30 billion including the one free restatement for the NNDIS 2018/19 cover. 

SIB liaises with the largest insurance marketplaces in the world, including Lloyd’s of London. The business handled by the firm emanates from majority of the countries offering reinsurance, via its Broker Network globally.