The COVID-19 crisis has been a shock for Turkish companies, as it was around the world. The severity and reach of the pandemic have made us all think about what could have been managed better and what lessons can be learned from it. The pandemic has underlined the value of risk management, forcing companies to adapt to remote work, learn new technologies, and find different ways to serve clients and customers. Most importantly I believe that the role of risk managers and risk awareness in general have increased substantially.
COVID-19 and Turkey
Looking specifically at Turkey, there are four main points I would like to address.
First of all I think that the Turkish Insurance market has reacted quite well to the pandemic. Nearly all companies started working remotely at the very beginning of the crisis.The Ministry permitted assessments, exemptions of invoices, indemnity payments on a digital basis.
Secondly, the insurance companies responded positively with regards to the different fees and treatment costs of COVID-19 (which are excluded in nearly all policies in Turkey and covered by the state scheme) to be covered during the epidemic as ex gratia payments in the scope of existing policies.
Thirdly, in addition COVID-19 has accelerated digitalization in Turkey, like it did in most countries. I believe that in Turkey we reached a point in digitalisation which we wouldn’t have reached in such a short time without this crisis. A lot of companies have accepted that Digitalization is not a choice anymore but it’s becoming a requirement if one wants to remain competitive in its markets.
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Source: *Digital Quality of Life Index 2020, Surfshark
On the other hand we had a lot of grey areas and question marks which had to be dealt with specifically concerning Business Interruption claims, as it has been for other countries and insurance markets as well. There is no question that the Insurance market does not have the financial strength to deal with such a risk on their own therefore government support is very important for such crisis, but it needs to be in partnership with the insurance sector. Moreover we hope to see more innovative non-physical BI solutions for the future, as the demand for that is growing day by day.
Lastly, the uncertainty the crisis brought up made companies have a dialogue with their brokers, that’s where we came into the picture. Even though non physical BI concerning pandemic was not included in the Property policy, the fact that there was a closer dialogue between the client and the broker allowed the broker to have an open discussion with the client about any other possible gaps and risk management solutions. We for example have received much more enquiries for Business Interruption, Cyber and Parametric Insurance proposals after the Pandemic crisis than we did before. In Turkey, in general, we saw greater awareness concerning other insurance products, such as health insurance or cyber insurance. So I believe that COVID-19 will actually intensify the focus on other areas and lead to rise of a new area of risk management approach.
COVID-19 and NART
So what about NART? While the market grew around 19%, as NART we grew over market average around 32 % in 2020. We have tried to stay close to our clients and business partners by organizing webinars, online meetings and online seminars.
This helped us in gaining new clients especially in the field of Heavy Industries, Energy and special risks.
Chart by Visualizer
Chart by Visualizer