The ad has everything a viewer would expect from an insurance company: a cast of smiling characters, reflecting the diversity of the world, parading to a backdrop of upbeat music with a voice-over delivering its message: “Open eyes, open heart, open mind… CNP Seguradora.” But looking at this spot more closely, the observer has reason to be surprised. First, it features the French life insurance giant, CNP Assurances, under an unknown brand. Then it’s in Portuguese, and only plays in Brazil.
Common values
“CNP Assurances has been established in the country since 2001,” explains Stéphane Dedeyan, CEO of CNP Assurances. To the point of having become the third insurer with 12 million customers and a net result of 200 million euros in 2022.
The Brazilian market, the largest internationally for CNP Assurances, generated 200 million euros in profit last year.
By cultivating an exclusive partnership with Caixa Econômica Federal – the equivalent of Caisse des dépôts, serving one out of two Brazilians – the insurer has effortlessly capitalized on the Brazilian group’s strike force, supplying its customers with a white label up to in the Amazon. And between La Caixa, which has a public service mission, and the French insurer united with La Banque Postale, common values have facilitated trade.
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This quiet companionship is turned upside down when, in 2021, La Caixa opens the distribution agreements formerly held by CNP to public markets. The French insurer was only able to regain, at the end of 2022, 70% of the market it previously covered.
Asma Baccar, boss of CNP Assurances Latin America, has taken the measure of the new challenge: to fly on her own to compensate for the 30% lost. A necessary Copernican revolution, because it is impossible to disengage from a country full of promise: “The penetration rate of insurance in the GDP is around 3% there, against more than 10% in Europe”, maintains- She.
An open model
The French group has therefore grouped its activities – pensions, savings, health, local loan products – under a new brand, CNP Seguradora, which will operate under an open model, independently of the renewed activities with La Caixa. “We want partners in bancassurance, because that’s what we know how to do”, underlines Asma Baccar, who wants to multiply the distribution channels to increase volume. But the five national leaders who concentrate 85% of the market – Banco do Brasil, Caixa, Bradesco, Itaú and Santander – already have their own agreements.
We must therefore attack regional banks, private banks and digital banks – which are increasingly powerful in Brazil. For this, the group concentrates its forces within the first business city, Sao Paulo. Nearly 150 people (35% of the teams) will leave the Brasília headquarters in 2023. “The danger is that CNP multiplies costly partnerships without reaching a critical mass that allows it to be profitable”, notes a competitor. Or that the group remains limited to its image of insurer for modest audiences, and does not convince an upscale clientele on better-margined products.
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As its advertising campaign explains, CNP has “eyes and heart” open to new business. The return of Lula could heal the wounds of the Bolsonarist presidency, which is not really favorable to French companies. But CNP will seek some of its happiness elsewhere. The insurer has already secured a ten-year partnership with Banco Credit Popular of Argentina.
Esther Attias (in Brazil)
2023-05-07 09:08:22
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