Page 67 - March 2022 Issue 604 Part 2

Anthony Harris AL BAYAN ECONOMIC MAG - ISSUE 604 - MARCH 2022

(Senior Executive Officer Tysers):

We will continue to do good

business in the region as long as

we remain close to our clients

Tysers began in the City of London
during 1820, originating in the
marine trade of the developing world,
assisting governments with state-owned
insurance programs. Originally a family
firm, Tysers later became a private part-
nership before finally incorporating in
2001. The company may have evolved
but the family ethos and client focus
have remained the same, with a combi-
nation of entrepreneurialism and princi-
pled business practice that sets it apart.
It has withstood the test of time in the insur-
ance industry because client satisfaction is
paramount to it, and its exceptional business
retention rates are testament to this. It continues to provide forward-thinking, nimble,
wholesale and direct-to-client, solutions. Al Bayan Magazine met Anthony Harris,
Senior Executive Officer at Tysers, Dubai and conducted the following interview.

We built a resilient platform

* Do you think the war between Russia and Ukraine will have an impact on
the insurance industry in the region?
- I am hoping that this region will not be too badly affected by the war. Prices will
rise and the energy market will change. We have seen the oil price rise towards
$130 per barrel, almost the highest it has ever been. All the recent volatility will
change our lives, but as we saw during the Covid-19 pandemic, we have stuck
to our clients. We are essentially a people business. As a company we have done
well during this period and so I am optimistic that we are small enough to be close
to our clients and markets and as long as we keep that personal link, we can con-
tinue to do good business in the region.
We are fortunate to have built a solid presence in the region. We have been lucky
in that, but we work hard and we have done well in the past few years.
Personally, I have been surprised by the ease with which we were able to go from
old fashioned working in the office, switching suddenly to remote working, with
everyone operating from home. I can never forget the 17th of March 2020 when
we shut our office and within 24 hours everyone was working normally from home
and we kept it up for months. We just had another period when we had to move
office because we’ve grown in size. Thus, we have learned a lot, and we will, i
hope, be able to cope with any strain of the virus, if, alas, the pandemic were to
come back. We’ve built a platform which is resilient, we cover more sectors than
we did before and we’ve got bigger presence in the market so I am very optimistic
for the coming years.

* What will be your strategy for 2022?
- We have added new young members to our staff: we will be integrating them fully in the
office, getting to know them better & helping them grow their business. We hope not to
have big disruptions in 2022, especially after the horrors that we have been through in the
past two years. We want to get the new office, into which we just moved, running smooth-
ly and get the staff out into the market place as well as getting back to operate as we did
three years ago.

* Which market is the best for you in the region?
- We have frequent contact with most of the Gulf States, which we know well, and
of course we have a presence in Saudi Arabia, with our separate free-standing
company in Riyadh. SAMA, as you know, prefer companies in the Kingdom to
operate as independently as possible, but we work with them when we can. We
assist the company where we can and basically they do their own thing in coop-
eration with London. We have recruited new staff in London and in the local
Dubai market, and they are now beginning to visit Qatar, Oman, Bahrain and
Kuwait again, in addition to countries further aflied. Also, we are trying to build
new markets in places like Iraq although it is not easy to do business there. We
are optimistic and we will go on growing in Dubai which is a good regional hub and we
are now looking to extend more into Africa.

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