Looking to bigger things in the future

N SEPTEMBER OF 2018, ICBL welcomed Glyne Pilgrim as their new chief financial officer. Pilgrim began his long tenure of over 20 years in the insurance realm in auditing before joining Guardian back when it was Caribbean Home.

“I came in at a time when the company was in transition. My role was to put a firm footing in terms of how the financial team operated, taking a look at the structure of what we were doing, and looking at the future,” said Pilgrim.

At ICBL the finance department is structured through four areas, financial reporting being a key one. ICBL publishes quarterly financials which necessitate a strong team in that field. Treasury management is also very important for an insurance company. For their vendors, Accounts Payable (AP) is also an important link in the chain. The fourth area is covered by investments.

According to Pilgrim, “What I’ve done as a part of my change process is twinning the Process Management with the AP team so that they can help in terms of doing process improvements.

“The asset management team is what we are now developing more assiduously with areas like pension management and investments for the business to make sure that we make decent returns. For an insurance company, it is always important to have stable and liquid-type investments. In the event that we are required to settle claims in a hurry, it is important that we have the confidence in our ability to settle. This ability to meet our financial commitments is one of the key areas of which we are very proud of at ICBL,” Pilgrim shared.

When Pilgrim joined, the Government had just taken a look at restructuring bonds and there was also the implementation of a change in standards through the International Financial Reporting Standard 9 (IFRS 9). However, ICBL has been able to have on board stays with us. We provide results as much as possible

The company is still very strong. When I report at the end of a quarter, we let them know that our balance sheet remains strong and that our capital position is a very healthy one that is above what is required by the regulator,” he added.

ICBL, as an organisation, goes through annual plans that include looking at potential scenarios that can deeply impact its business model. Through these predictive scenarios, they identify what they would be required to do.

During Hurricane Elsa, for example, early numbers of calls jumped due to the damage but ICBL was able to respond appropriately to address the situation due to their rigorous planning and rehearsals for these types of scenarios.

One of the innovations brought on by COVID-19 was the ability to make payments to clients directly rather than relying on cheques which take far more time to be available. Getting clients