Aspasia Karras interviews Judi Priday, the managing director of newly formed Quantum Insurance
Newly launched Quantum Insurance is breaking new ground in the corporate risk management industry. Not only is it the first major insurance company to appoint a woman managing director, Judi Priday (32), but it uses a different approach to combat the market forces that plague the insurance cycle.
Says Priday: “Quantum focuses on the financial aspects of insurance, rather than on the traditional interests. Internationally, banks and insurance companies are moving a lot closer because the risks they deal in are very similar.”
Quantum concentrates solely on corporate clients. It avoids writing low-risk insurance for individuals at increasingly expensive rates. “But,” contends Priday, “even corporate clients are finding that insurance is becoming too expensive.”
Priday offers interesting solutions. Her company keeps its overheads low by contracting out most of the work that creates the internal bureacracy in traditional insurance companies. Everything from administration to legal aspects, tax, financial advice, and statistical services, is contracted out, allowing Priday the freedom to use the most professional service and to “keep people on their toes”. In this way she can offer her clients a cheaper package.
Furthermore, Quantum concentrates on fewer, larger contracts. “No arrangement is the same,” says Priday. Quantum consults with each client to create a specific package, often extending to insuring risks traditionally left uninsured, as companies can afford to insure only for major catastrophes.
Quantum offers clients an incentive to reduce their risk in the form of a pay-back of part of the premium. “Traditionally if you paid an insurance premium you never got anything back from it, but if you manage your risk correctly we promise to give some of your money back,” says Priday.
Quantum — a joint venture of two Rand Merchant Bank Holdings, Aegis Insurance and Hollandia Reinsurance, with an initial capital of R20-million — forecasts that it will sign R200-million worth of premiums within its first year of business. This would place it among the top 20 insurance companies in South Africa.
Since it started in mid-May Quantum has faced an unexpected flood of work. As well inheriting clients from Aegis, it is working closely with several financial institutions and dealing with a surprising demand from new clients.
“There is obviously a great attraction in doing something slightly different,” says Priday, a Capetonian chartered accountant with an MBA. This is not a surprising statement from a person who has spent time experiencing the more transcendental aspects of India, and whose interests range from candle-making to parachuting.
Priday’s fast-track career has involved her working for Ernst & Whinney in London, and Swiss-South African Reinsurance Company Ltd. She likes to move quickly, but her ambition is tempered by a sense of humour, evidenced by her spontaneous laughter. “Life should be fun,” she claims, and so she seeks balance through more light-hearted pursuits like travel.
She believes Quantum is unique in the South African market. “We do not compete,” she states categorically, “as there are no other companies that work in precisely the field of banking-related insurance products Quantum has chosen to move into.”
Paul Harris, managing director of Rand Merchant Bank Ltd and non-executive chairman of Quantum says Priday “has clearly got tremendous qualifications, business acumen, and fire in her belly.”