How do you approach managing legal aspects during periods of instability or crises, and how does your legal strategy align with the broader business strategy to ensure the organisation’s resilience?  

COVID-19, and more recently, seasonal epidemiological outbreaks and the impact of climate change in the country have been major challenges to the sustainability of the insurance industry. In addition, there is a constant evolution of regulations that govern all aspects of the business, especially on insurance and tax issues, and the fast digitisation of the company’s processes, with the implementation of AI tools.

Through the legal department, we seek to be strategic allies of our internal clients, anticipating their needs, constantly monitoring all regulatory changes that may affect the firm’s operations, and outlining strategies that allow us to adopt all measures required to comply with legal mandates and mitigate any potential risks. Any strategy that ignores the corporate DNA, values and operations of the business would be a failure. Therefore, we proactively participate in how all areas of the business operate, focusing on external relationships with our customers, suppliers and regulators, which allows us to have a comprehensive view of the overall business, maintaining coherent and unified criteria. Our main challenge is to keep up with the speed of the market, ensuring that our business strategy goes hand in hand with the large catalog of rules that apply to all the firm’s activities.

Of course, none of this would be possible without the work synergy that we have been able to establish in the legal department, thanks to the commitment and dedication of our collaborators. 

What are the main cases or transactions you have been involved in recently?  

We have actively supported the technical areas in the review and updating of insurance policy contracts in all the branches, and in the design of new insurance products which the company has already started to offer.

We have also maintained a very close oversight of the company’s litigation, delineating strategies together with our external lawyers, with a good success rate, and implemented innovations and improvements, because of the experiences of different areas of the company, in the drafting of contracts with our providers. Legal support has been fundamental for the execution of multiple real estate and administrative transactions for the expansion of our branches in different locations countrywide. In addition, from the legal committee of insurance guild, we have worked on a project to amend the insurance law, and we have participated in discussions on various draft regulations.  

 What measures has your company taken to embed sustainability practices into its core business operations, and how does the role of the general counsel contribute to driving and ensuring sustainable practices within the company?  

 The company is dematerialising multiple operational processes, significantly reducing the management of physical paperwork and the execution of manual tasks, shifting to digital document management, to process automation and to the reduction of our carbon footprint, in line with the objectives of sustainable development. Also, bringing our services closer to our clients, reducing the need for them to physically travel to our offices, promoting the use of our e-channels. The legal team have provided support to these efforts, leading the initiative of e-signing of contracts & documents, as well as strengthening the contractual provisions, so the company can continue executing dematerialization initiatives, counting with due protection, guarantee and legal backing.