Life of Jamaica, soon to be rebranded as Sagicor Life Jamaica, is the leader in all the major insurance benchmarks, except one - total assets.

And that benchmark is dominated by ScotiaLife and its flag ship bancassurance product, ScotiaMint. On the strength of the ScotiaMint product which provides a savings vehicle backed by miniscule life insurance coverage, ScotiaLife has $34.5 billion of total a ssets to LOJ's $33.7 billion for 2007.

Sagicor's prsident and CEO Dodridge Miller (left) with Life of Jamaica's (LOJ) president and CEO Richard Byles at yesterday's Life of Jamaica's AGM, which took place at the LOJ Centre in New Kingston.

Speaking at the LOJ annual general meeting held at the LOJ Centre in New Kingston yesterday, President and Chief Executive Officer Richard Byles, gave some indication that his team will give Scotiabank and other competitors a run for their money. "Scotiabank has taken us over in terms of total assets. That means a whole lot of people have taken up that bancassurance product; but we intend to correct this."

Byles did not state specifically how LOJ will "correct" the situation but it is known that subsidiary Pan Caribbean Financial Services (PCFS) will open its commercial bank later this year.

Neither Byles nor Donovan Perkins, PCFS President and
Chief Executive Officer would confirm or deny the possibility of the creation of a bancassurance product. However, they did speak around a general strategy.

"Pan will play an important role at LOJ in the coming fiscal year," Perkins stated. "We will be partnering with LOJ to develop new products that speak to returns, but remember that new products require Financial Services Commission approval."

Byles noted, "The race is not over assets, the race is over efficiency. Remember that Scotiabank has over 40 branches and so it is easy for them to distribute their product." Perkins noted that, "The commercial bank is a new area for us and yes, we will take the opportunity to cross sell LOJ products to our commercial banking clients."

Beyond the possibility of creating a new bancassurance product, Byles told shareholders that the challenges for 2008 include increasing revenue and productivity.

"We have got to grow revenue and we have got to keep coming up with new products. We also need to find new markets to sell to and expand our sales network."

Looking at the need for increased productivity, Blyes noted, "Our increased revenue will come from technology and creating incentives. We have to find a way to get all our staff to fulfill their dreams and our dreams through productivity."

And Blyes reminded shareholders that during 2007, based on data released by the regulators of the insurance industry, LOJ was the market leader in total revenue, net profit attributed to shareholders and equity attributed to shareholders. He stated, "Judge us on those benchmarks."

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