Antilles Insurance Co. President, Jaime J. González Portilla, has announced the launch of a new service. Employment-Related Practices Liability (EPL), the new service within its comercial package, should be available to clients in approximately two months. “It is not a new product in the market, but it’s an important product and we are making it available to our commercial customers,” he said. EPL pays litigation and indemnity expenses in case of wrongful employee termination or sexual harassment, among other situations.

“Our promise to customers,” said González Portilla, “is peace of mind. We are the best capitalized company in Puerto Rico in terms of net worth versus subscribed premiums, and our customers can count on us in the event of any catastrophe.”

Although González Portilla has identified a market tendency to expand local insurance companies to the mainland U.S., he admits he doesn’t plan to follow suit.

His plan is to continue renewing Antilles’ current customer portfolio. Commenting on another industry trend that has been going on for a couple of years now, he said, “it’s a soft market,” referring to low prices as a result of Puerto Rico’s highly competitive insurance market.
Tradition of Excellence
Antilles, a third-generation, family-owned business was established in 1968 under the umbrella of parent company Anglo Puerto Rican Insurance Corp. The core entities also includes Ochoa Realty, the owner of the Ochoa Building in Old San Juan, which serves as the headquarters of Antilles as well as several other prominent public and private entities.

 
Nearly three-quarters of a century after the González brothers established the island’s first locally-owned general insurance agency, the business is still going strong. According to González Portilla, Antilles’ success comes from the executive’s conservative standpoint. “I am the third González generation to run the company and we have always focused on getting our profit from underwriting rather than from investments,” he said. In addition, the company carefully selects its insured and its business partners.

“Another important factor in our success is that we purchase more reinsurance than we need. This is because we want to make sure we have enough capital to cover our clients’ losses and remain a solid company financially speaking,” said González Portilla, adding that Antilles’ solid and professional reputation make him proud.’

A company’s reinsurance capacity is important because, should a major catastrophe occur, such as a hurricane or an earthquake, there is not enough local capital to pay for every insured property. “Managing our reinsurance capacity and the sum of all our insured policies,” he said, “has become the insurer’s greatest challenge.” According to him, not many reinsurance companies want to invest in Puerto Rico because of the island’s high risk of being hit by a hurricane and its earthquake probabilities.

Nonetheless, the company has made it to the top with discipline. “Discipline is a word we use and practice very often here. We demand discipline in our procedures such as in our quoting formula. If a price is incorrect, it could lead the business to bankruptcy, in the worst of cases, say a catastrophe. As I have said before, we are very conservative in this regard,” said González Portilla.

A.M. Best, an independent entity that evaluates insurance and banking companies, gave Antilles an A (excellent) rating, the highest rating for a native insurance company .

González Portilla said Antilles is not about being the biggest company, but about providing the best service. “We offer a personalized relationship with the customer. Being a small company allows us to treat customers as people and not as a number or a file. Many clients have left us for another company and come back when they realize this is true.” he said.

A total of 50% of Antilles’ client portfolio comes from commercial lines, which also include public liability insurance and fleet auto insurance. The other half of its business is dwelling insurance, also known as hazard insurance, for mortgages, which is its most popular product and insures a property’s structure.

Antilles has three departments, which offer commercial lines, personal lines and surety products. The Commercial Lines Department provides products, such as commercial packages, commercial auto, commercial umbrellas and ocean cargo policies. It also offers an exclusive product designed by the company called Unit Owner’s Interest in the Common Elements, which is commonly known as a Unit Owner’s Policy. This unique product offers coverage for condominium unit owners when the condominium master policy doesn’t provide adequate limits of insurance or when there is no condominium master policy in force. This policy, however, should not be confused with an excess policy, which is offered by other insurance companies.

Antilles Personal Lines Department covers dwelling policies required by mortgage banks as well as personal packages that cover home structures and contents, personal autos, boats and/or liability insurance all included in one policy with deep premium discounts. It also offers traditional Homeowners policies and Personal Auto policies.

The Surety Department offers products, such as miscellaneous bonds, bid and performance bonds, contract bonds and permit bonds, among others.

Many things have changed in the industry since the company’s foundation nearly 40 years ago. Employees, however, are not one of them. González Portilla said Antilles’ staff each has an average of about 20 years experience in the insurance industry and a great number of the employees have been with the company for many years, which contributes to its ability to offer professional, quality service to the company’s clients.

One of the most significant industry changes lately, according to González Portilla, is the incursion of banking institutions in the insurance market. “As a result, many insurance companies, including ours, have a stronger relationship with the banking sector,” González Portilla said. He also said that bank-owned insurance agencies have been shown to be a strong, profitable business.

An upcoming industry change has to do with regulation. The Insurance Commissioner’s Office (ICO) is waiting on the Department of State to approve Rule 84, which would regulate contingent commissions (which are paid to the general agent on top of the commission already established by ICO.