Strategy
Sampo is a leading Northern European P&C insurance group with operations in the Nordics, Baltics, and the UK.
Sampo’s P&C insurance strategy is based on disciplined underwriting, strong operational capabilities and customer centricity. Combined with careful risk management, this enables Sampo to deliver attractive margins and strong financial resilience, both of which Sampo considers essential to value creation.
Disciplined capital management is essential to value creation. Hence, Sampo is committed to operating with a strong but efficient balance sheet, calibrated to reflect the Group’s risk exposures. Ongoing surplus capital generation is mainly distributed through the dividend, which is paid once a year, but this can be complemented with additional capital returns in the form of extra dividends or buybacks should Sampo find itself in an excess capital position. Sampo’s M&A appetite is limited to bolt-on acquisitions in its existing markets.
Strategy in different areas
Sampo is the leading P&C insurance group in the Nordics with a market share of approximately 20 per cent across the region. Sampo leverages its regional scale, digital capabilities, and unique underwriting culture to attain competitive advantages that allow it to create a superior customer proposition.
The integrated pan-Nordic operating platform that is built within If P&C plays a key role in Sampo’s Nordic P&C insurance strategy. If offers a full range of P&C insurance solutions and services to a broad customer base, from private individuals to large corporate customers.
If's operations are divided into Nordic business areas by customer segments; Private, Commercial, Industrial, and the Baltic. Private is If's largest business area and it is the Nordic market leader in this area with more than 3 million households as customers. Meanwhile, Commercial insures companies with up to 500 employees. It is amongst the largest in the Nordic region with approximately 340,000 customers. Industrial is one of the leading insurers for large corporate customers in the Nordic region and it includes approximately 1,200 customers. These customers are companies with annual turnovers of more than EUR 50 million and over 500 employees.
If operates a pan-Nordic organisational structure across customer areas and several support functions, such as IT and claims handling. In combination with extensive investments into IT development, this has enabled If to achieve continuous productivity improvements for well over a decade. If aims to continuously improve its operational efficiency.
In Denmark, Sampo operates through both If and the Danish insurer Topdanmark. Topdanmark has a 16 per cent market share in the Danish P&C insurance market and it focuses on the private and SME markets, which also include agricultural businesses. The two business areas, Private and SME, are, broadly speaking, equally split by premium volume. Topdanmark offers a full range of insurance products to private households, with its main products being motor, home, and contents insurance. Topdanmark's more specialised insurance portfolio includes travel, animal, and electronics insurance, as well as change of ownership insurance. With regard to SMEs, Topdanmark serves approximately 110,000 Danish small and medium-sized enterprises and agricultural customers.
In the UK, Sampo is one of the leading P&C insurers in digital motor insurance and a challenger in a fast-growing digital home insurance. Sampo has over 3 million customers through Hastings, which operates mainly through price comparison websites.
Sampo aims to grow in the UK personal lines P&C insurance market by leveraging Hastings’ already strong competitive position and by further developing this through investments in technology and other operational capabilities. Sampo’s long-term mindset also helps Hastings navigate the volatile UK motor insurance market as its short-term fluctuations often present strategic challenges for less diversified groups.
Hastings benefits from a simple and straightforward business model, digitally focused distribution, and advanced pricing and fraud detection systems and processes. In line with the rest of Sampo Group, the company is focused on prudent underwriting and risk management, which is supported by the extensive use of data.
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