To commemorate reaching its five-year anniversary, Latin Re – the first Brazilian broker to secure a Lloyd’s licence – threw a celebration in São Paulo, drawing over 500 attendees, including insurers, brokers, and other industry participants from over 10 countries. The time and date chosen – August 8 at 8pm – was a deliberate representation of the firm’s ambitions, according to founder and CCO Felipe Aragão (pictured left) – because, by inverting the number eight, you get the infinity sign.
It has been a whirlwind journey for the business which obtained its operating licence in August 2019, enjoying only months of trading before the COVID crisis hit. “Ours is a success story but it has been a challenging one, which makes us even more proud,” noted CEO Maria Eduarda Bomfim (pictured right). Now, the firm’s focus is on the future as it continues to pursue an internationalization strategy, while further consolidating its brand in Brazil.
Aragão highlighted that it’s a great time to be pursuing an internationalization strategy given how the market has evolved post-COVID. Where once it was a lot more formal and heavily reliant on in-person meetings, it has increasingly welcomed the accessibility of remote working, video conversations and emails. That’s not to say the market doesn’t miss an element of the personal touch, he said, and that’s especially true across Latin America where the emphasis Latin Re places on access to decision-makers is resonating strongly.
“So, we started our Miami operation last year, as well as obtaining our Lloyd’s licence, which has increased our demand not just from Brazilian wholesale but most of Latin American wholesale,” he said. “It’s a process not just of opening offices, but now obtaining licences all around Latin America. We’re doing something no other Brazilian company has done before which is doing business overseas but using our Brazilian licence.
“We were recently approved in Peru and we’re expecting the approval for Colombia and Guatemala. We’re already doing a lot of business in Mexico with local partners, and we are very confident that demand is coming from clients that have more of a Latin culture. And that includes both French and Spanish companies.”
Central to the DNA of the firm is its commitment to serving as a marketplace for reinsurance, Eduarda Bomfim said, which means serving partners from all across the re/insurance ecosystem. Latin Re has established itself as a provider of solutions for the complex and specific needs of insurance and reinsurance entities alike. It’s quite a unique approach in that it sees the firm partner with companies which would traditionally be seen as competitors.
“But they are not competitors, because we are able to zoom in on specific and very niche needs, whereas the mega brokers don’t have the ability because they are washed out with so many demands and so many global programs and international institutional demands,” she said. “That goes to the DNA of what we’re building – as a solutions provider in the market, whether that’s retail, reinsurance, treaties or alternative alternative risk transfer.”
Eduarda Bomfim noted that when Aragão started the firm, he was meticulous in hand-choosing every single partner, including herself, and that they had all worked together previously at another brokerage. Having the right people early on inevitably lends itself to having a big will to succeed, she said, and they were each passionate about the opportunity that had opened up due to market consolidation.
Latin Re is on course to finish out 2024 with 60-plus people – having grown at a rate of about one key hire a month since its inception. Whether hiring on the operations, claims, or broking side of the business, Aragão and Eduarda Bomfim each highlighted that every care is taken to ensure they’re attracting and retaining the right people in order to grow quickly, without losing quality of service.
When it launched, the names of its partners were signifiers of its quality and ambition, Eduarda Bomfim said but five years on Latin Re is being recognized across the market. That puts it in a different phase of its growth journey because it’s now being reached out to by people who would like to join the business. Aragão highlighted that the company has also reached the stage where it has appointed its first partner from inside the team, and not outside the company – and projects to have its first ‘home-grown’ partner in the next 12-24 months.
As for what the future holds, he shared that when Latin Re started, its goal for the first two-to-three years was to be the best Brazilian reinsurance broker. It was only when it had enough people that it was able to spot where it differentiated itself from the rest of the market and could add further value to its partners across the re/insurance market. It’s still part of its ambition for the future, but only part of a growth objective that has evolved and changed as the business has done the same. “We are not sales company,” he said. “We are more of a service company.
“We focus on the service, we focus on the demands of our clients and we adapt very quickly to their changing expectations. We really believe that in the next five years, we’re going to have a big effect among the Iberia and Latam regions. And hopefully, we will be as recognised across that whole region as we currently are in Brazil. So, our 10-year party is going to have to be a lot bigger than our five-year party!”
