Local strength, global expertise: Sompo’s approach to Italy’s evolving insurance market
As Italy’s risk landscape evolves, Simona Fumagalli explains how Sompo combines local insight with global expertise.
Article
As Sompo celebrates two years of presence in the French market, its General Manager, Marilyn Faugas, reflects on the initial outcomes of the strategy implemented by the Japan-based international insurer and discusses the trends for upcoming results.
For many years, Sompo had chosen to focus its operations in Continental Europe exclusively on supporting its Japanese clients who have interests or subsidiaries in Continental Europe, including France. The concept of service is very important to this team: providing end-to-end support, regardless of the region in the world, to Japanese clients is a very strong component of our DNA. Since obtaining our license in France two years ago, the strategy has been rethought to expand our insurance solutions to our French clientele, with a focus on large accounts, while maintaining this strong emphasis on quality service and support.
The assessment is extremely positive and perfectly aligned with our strategic plan.
Expert insight
We have built a team of experts, recognized in the market, which allowed us to quickly gain the trust of our clients and brokers, especially in underwriting, claims handling, and distribution. As a result, we were able to establish ourselves on the market and operate effectively.
Marilyn Faugas
Country Manager, Insurance, France
Indeed, our internal organization, which prioritizes local decision-making authority in terms of underwriting and claims handling, has enabled us to demonstrate agility and responsiveness in supporting our clients with all their requests.
This has allowed us to initiate sustainable growth through the development of a diverse portfolio in terms of sectoral presence and an approach that combines leading underwriting positions and co-insurance positions. This strategy has enabled us to turn ambitious objectives into significant achievements in terms of revenue as well as underwriting results. Furthermore, we have observed that our clients have chosen to stay with us for the long term, which aligns perfectly with our values based on the notion of long-term commitment.
Our offering is currently structured around five business lines: Property, Liability, Marine Cargo, Financial Lines (including Directors’ Liability, Fraud, Cyber, Professional Liability, and EPL), and finally, Accident & Health.
Expert insight
Our priority is to target large enterprises for which we are able to offer leading underwriting solutions as well as the implementation of international programs. Our extensive global presence allows us to effectively deploy our solutions in 160 countries.
Marilyn Faugas
Country Manager, Insurance, France
The feedback from our clients regarding the quality of service of our Multinational offering confirms that we are on the right track.
The mid-sized companies (ETI) segment is not overlooked, particularly in our specialty lines. Both in Marine Cargo and Financial Lines, our solutions are perfectly suited to companies of this size.
Lastly, we primarily focus on deploying our capacities on first layers.
We work closely with both global brokers and specialized brokers. Additionally, we collaborate with specialized brokers, particularly in the transportation sector, who hold significant market shares, to continue developing diversified and attractive portfolios.
Expert insight
We are proud to be able to show a trend in revenue and underwriting results that are perfectly in line with the strategy that was defined. Despite a tense market, we have managed to convince without deviating from our approach, which is based on a disciplined underwriting strategy that is both rigorous and agile.
Marilyn Faugas
Country Manager, Insurance, France
After just two years of presence in France, this reflects a very strong dynamic within our team. Sompo is proud to have been recognized so quickly as a key player, not just a capacity provider, but a leading actor that, like the group has achieved in Asia, the United States, and the UK, can establish a leadership position in ambitious programs in France.
Finally, we have successfully established ourselves in the market and are recognized as a reference partner, which represents a strategic milestone that we are very pleased with.
Absolutely. We are continuously working on developing new solutions. The idea is to complement our range of products to meet the needs of our clients. It is still a little early to talk about it, but the strong momentum recorded over the past two years has given us ideas to explore new business lines.
Cyber is indeed one of the areas we are developing at Sompo, with strong growth prospects. We offer comprehensive cyber insurance solutions covering data breaches, digital extortion, and business interruptions, to help businesses effectively manage and mitigate cyber risks. With in-depth expertise, supported by our Cyber engineers, we assist our clients in reducing their risk profiles.
All this experience is leveraged to simplify processes and facilitate the management of complex issues. Furthermore, we have established collaborations with excellent partners, such as Dattak, with whom we have been successfully working since 2024.
First published by La Tribune de l’Assurance