Carolina Cuenca

Seguros SURA Panama is focused on being a local company that takes advantage of its global expertise knowledge while understanding the needs of Panamanians.

What is the strategy of SURA to become a referent in the sector not only in Colombia but in Panama too?

Our strategy aims to generate sustainable wellbeing and competitiveness for people and companies in the region. Our main transformation is that we are expanding the boundaries of a traditional insurance industry by embracing the management of trends and risks as inputs to develop and transform our portfolio to leverage how people and companies can improve their wellbeing and competitiveness. This is achieved by envisioning SURA as a service platform from which the fundamentals of insurance coverage are received by our clients and a portfolio of complimentary services around the fundamental needs associated with their lives and businesses. SURA has been in Colombia for more than 75 years adding value to families and companies, and in 2022 SURA celebrated its 25th anniversary in Panama. We believe in the improvement of our local industry from responding to insurance claims to also providing services and solutions present on a daily basis and covered by the principles of mutuality. SURA has learned from experiences in Colombia and other countries in Latin America from which Panama’s insurance industry and Panamanians will benefit. Our principles and values aim for the development of society, country, and industry, and thus we have been working closely with the regulatory actors, motivating collaboration within insurers, and being relevant social actors. SURA views Panama as a strategic platform to continue growing and leveraging the knowledge of a 75-year-old company where we have many successful initiatives that we are bringing to Panama that are the result of what has been built throughout Latin America. Empresas SURA, as one example, is a regional proposal that responds to the needs of SMEs across the region, and we decided to be one of the firsts branches to implement it addressing the local context of Panamanian SMEs.

How can companies from various sectors benefit from Empresas SURA?

We launched this regional platform in 2019, and we continue to look for ways to develop Empresas SURA further. Throughout Latin America, SMEs are the engine of the economy, generally comprising 50% of jobs and 96% of companies; however, many SMEs fail in the first years, while those who manage to get through the first years need more support. There are others that have passed the three-year mark but do not know how to grow in other markets or expand in its current market. Empresas SURA looks to understand the principal needs of SMEs according to their growth stage, their industry or sector, and works alongside them to give them knowledge, tools, and even enterprise coaching to address those issues and situation in which they are not experts through their development as businesses.

How did the pandemic boost the importance of health, and how is SURA adapting its service accordingly?

It was an excellent opportunity to transform ourselves and accelerate the developments that we knew that had to happen in the midterm. From basic processes of issuing policies to billing collection processes, and we now have many digital services that help our clients to have better interactions with our company. Many services were improved or streamlined, frictions were removed, and our value proposition was also transformed to respond to the context during and following the pandemic. Specifically, during the pandemic we developed a free Home Care Plan in partnership with several institutions and companies from public and private sectors designed to assist people with COVID-19 at early stages and with a reach in certain populated districts of Panama. After the pandemic, with all the lessons learned, we launched the program Salud a Tu Alcance, which integrates our experience from Colombia and from the pandemic and is one of various proposals related to the transformation of our portfolio. The main objective is to empower customers to look after their health from a positive and preventive perspective rather from an illness and reactive traditional way.