Mehmet Şencan, General Manager of Anadolu Sigorta, commented on the impacts of coronavirus pandemic that has impacted the entire world. He stated that insurance market was highly successful against this test, and that health, cyber-security and credit insurance products will stand out among others in the new normal.

Mehmet Şencan, General Manager of Anadou Sigorta, commented on the effects of COVID-19 pandemic on the insurance market as a phenomenon that has spread around the entire world and impacted Turkey for nearly four months.

Stating that insurance market was highly successful against this test, Şencan said that health, cyber-security and credit insurance products would especially stand out among other products in the insurance market during the new normal.

“Insurance market exhibited a significant solidarity”

Şencan said that Anadolu Sigorta continued to work without any problems after transitioning to work-from-home model thanks to its technical infrastructure, and they returned to the office with 20 percent of their entire capacity as of 1 June. He added: “During these challenging times, entire insurance market has been highly successful in this test, having cooperated with our state, Insurance Association of Turkey and insurance companies. We have swiftly taken the most appropriate precautions. Compulsory premiums were postponed, discounts were made. All companies announced packages for their customers. Pandemic was an exemption for the insurance market; but was included in policy scopes, nonetheless. This has been a time of transition, solidarity and unity. We have acted with great solidarity as a market. As Anadolu Sigorta, we have provided many conveniences for our customers including discounts, increasing the number of installments, and postponing payments. We have tried to do our best in easing the burden of both our agents and our customers.”

“Health, cyber-security and credit insurance will stand out in the new term”

Stating that insurance is generally one of the first items that people stop expending in during such challenging times, Şencan added as follows: The market has shrunk, and premiums declines to a certain degree during the pandemic. Since May, the market is tending towards normalization. However, we estimate that the market will continue to rise in the coming terms.” Underlining that especially health insurance will stand out in the new term, Şencan said: “No one was ready for this, because the nearest pandemic had been experienced in 1918. All economies in the world have suffered from serious impacts. Everyone withdrew themselves in their homes and started to think about what they did in the past, what they should do in the new term. Insurance market’s first response was to focus on sustainability and business continuity. We all began taking those risks into consideration and once again witnessed the importance of business continuity. In the health insurance side, a serious awareness was created for complementary health insurance supported by its reasonable price. On the other hand, cyber-security and cyber insurance began to attract more attention as technology started to be used at high levels. This area will continue to develop in the new term. Plus, we estimate that credit insurance will also stand out among other products.”