Capital Life adds Sagicor to name

The name Capital Life is a familiar one in Belize, but beginning this week it will be preceded by a new title that may not be so well known–Sagicor. The president and CEO of Sagicor Capital Life is in town to explain why the change is more than just cosmetic.

David O?Brien, President, CEO, Sagicor Capital Life
?The significance of changing the name from Capital Life to Sagicor Capital Life is that we will now be able to use the brawn that has been developed by our parent company, Sagicor Financial Corporation. I don?t know if you know the history of Sagicor Brand, when we used to be Barbados Mutual Life Assurance Society and when we demutualized at the end of 2002, we changed the name and a very important part of our future is the name that we chose which is Sagicor. We?ve changed the name and brand to Sagicor and this will give Capital Life an opportunity to become part of that brand.?

Stewart Krohn
?Those of us familiar with the rest of the Caribbean know that Sagicor is indeed a very strong brand and a very large company. With the advent of this CSME, can we expect to see Sagicor expand its operations in Belize maybe beyond the life insurance business into things like fire and hurricane, that type of stuff??

David O?Brien
?Certainly, Sagicor operates currently in twenty-two different countries including Panama and the United States, but the rest of the countries are mainly in the Caribbean. So we have already taken advantage of what might be the Caribbean entities, different Caribbean territories. So we would like to push all our services to all the different countries in which we operate. We have a company called Sagicor General, which does property and casualty and we?re hoping to have that launched in Belize in the not too distant future.?

Stewart Krohn
?Over the years a number of indigenous insurance companies have grown up in Belize that are not affiliated with other regional or international brands, within this new dispensation of the CSME, how are smaller local companies all around the Caribbean suppose to compete with other giants like Sagicor and others??

David O?Brien
?Well I would like to think that Sagicor was an indigenous company. Sagicor prides itself on being a great Caribbean company and Caribbean company that includes Belize; it includes the twenty-two different countries we operate. So from my point of view, we see ourselves as the giant of the Caribbean and an opportunity for Caribbean people to participate in a company that is indigenous to their territories and not necessarily to…I don?t think that everything in the Caribbean has to be small. It?s an opportunity for us to have a brand and an organisation that even goes outside the Caribbean and becomes an international brand.?

O’Brien noted that most of the company’s premium income is reinvested in Belize, primarily in government bonds and residential mortgages.