Royal & SunAlliance wins "General Insurer of the Year" at Insurex 2008

It also scooped the "Medical Insurer of the Year" and "Training" awards at the event held at Raffles Hotel in Dubai.

The fifth annual Middle East Insurance Awards, organised by POLICY magazine, recognise outstanding achievement, innovation and success across all areas of the region's insurance industry.

"General Insurer of the Year" was one of twelve categories that recognised insurance industry initiatives and efforts in areas such as marketing, innovation, training, product development, corporate social responsibility and e-business.

As the only company to win three awards on the night, Royal & SunAlliance was recognized for demonstrating technical excellence, operational effectiveness and people management.

In its entry for the General Insurer of the Year Award, Royal & SunAlliance demonstrated its ability to establish a coherent development strategy, highlighting product innovation, response to customer needs and enhanced quality of service.

Successful management of change and proven ability to meet the demands of the market, regulators and government were key strengths highlighted by Royal & SunAlliance's submission.

Receiving the award, Pat O'Flynn, CEO of Royal & SunAlliance Middle East, said:

"The Middle East is amongst the fastest growing and most dynamic insurance markets in the world. Striving to achieve excellence in this challenging environment has meant a constant focus on business performance, service excellence and teamwork - ultimately producing one of this region's most successful insurance businesses. The commitment and effort of our team shines through and is today recognised by this prestigious award".

As the winner of the "Medical Insurer of the Year" with its medical partner in the UAE, GoodHealth; a global specialist provider of international health insurance, Royal & SunAlliance demonstrated a commitment to meeting diverse customer needs and a coherent development strategy alongside a proven track record of product innovation.

Royal & SunAlliance's submission for the "Training Award", highlighted how it succeeded in implementing an internal training programme that encouraged further progression of staff and contributed to business success.

The company's investment in training employees to enhance their skills, not just in the technical arena but also from a leadership perspective, ensures that the customer is placed at the heart of everything that is done.

In 2007 Royal & SunAlliance completed 45 internal and 18 external training courses in the UAE.

Commenting on the awards, Pat O'Flynn, CEO Middle East said "This is one of the most challenging arenas to work within, making this recognition even more important for us. We are now focused however on the next 12 months and how we can continue to evolve and offer our customers the highest quality".

An impressive line-up of international and regional expert speakers was assembled to discuss the insurance industry's latest trends and practices which include Mr. Dale Garbett, Royal & SunAlliance UAE's Risk Solutions Manager whose speech focused on the risk management services provided by Royal & SunAlliance, an overview of risk management in the UAE and 'loss lessons' from recent events.