Last month, the offshore insurance and investment firm, which has been operating in the Dubai International Financial Centre (DIFC) since 2014, announced that it was moving to a larger office in Currency House, having made some additional staff hires.
Speaking exclusively to International Adviser, Story confirmed that the Cayman Islands-headquartered company, which also has offices in Hong Kong, Malaysia and Uruguay, has hired broker specialists Myrtel Verano from Old Mutual International and Rubina Shaikh from Globaleye to ITA’s sales and marketing team.
“We have now grown to take a three-year lease on the new Currency House Office and have expanded the staff numbers in the sales and marketing team to five,” said Story.
“We’d like to double the business, as we did last year, which will be built on the basics we have in place. This will involves supporting the brokers we already have good relationships with, and getting a greater share of their business.”
He added that having “21st century products and IT systems” has given ITA a “massive advantage over our competitors”.
As a result, Story said the life insurer is now “on track” to have an even split where a third of its business will eventually come from each of the three regions it currently operates in; Latin America, Asia and the Middle East.
“We’ve grown nicely, the target is within the next two years – by the beginning of 2019 – we should be in that position. I’ve seen the numbers and the targets for the other two regions and they are all aiming for the same number,” he said.
Latest figures from 2016 show that ITA is the number one offshore provider for the Latam region, “overtaking the big boys”, said Story.
In addition, ITA is also targeting markets such as Oman, Qatar and Kuwait. Story revealed that “Europe is a very strong area for growth this year, particularly in the qualifying recognised overseas pension schemes (Qrops) and self-invested personal pension schemes (Sipps) area”.
