REGIONAL expansion efforts in Trinidad & Tobago and Barbados helped lift profits at General Accident Insurance Company Jamaica Limited (GENAC) by 66.4 per cent in the first quarter.

Having only entered both markets within the last few years, Group CEO Sharon Donaldson said increasing acceptance of the GENAC brand is now beginning to reflect in the company’s revenue mix.

“It took us time to scour the market and gain acceptance so the jump in premium is materially a result of that,” she explained during a recent Mayberry Investor briefing.

For the first quarter of 2026, top-line revenues climbed 18 per cent to $3.6 billion while net profit increased 66.4 per cent to $249.9 million. Jamaica accounted for 77 per cent of premium growth during the quarter while GENAC TT contributed 12 per cent and Barbados 11 per cent. Donaldson noted that Barbados, which GENAC entered in 2020, continues to gain traction as more customers become comfortable doing business with the insurer following years of building out its service standards and market presence. She added that the company expects regional gross premiums to continue growing.

“It will continue to grow because Barbados hasn’t gotten anywhere near where we would like it to be, and it will take time to get there,” she stated.

For Trinidad & Tobago, operations initially focused on restructuring inherited debt obligations after the acquisition from the Central Bank of Trinidad and Tobago under regulatory management, delaying efforts to aggressively pursue growth within the market. The company later rebranded the operation to GENAC TT and began focusing on rebuilding market confidence and expanding its customer base, a process she said took time but is now beginning to translate into stronger premium growth. Locally, GENAC has continued recording steady increases in premium income over the past three decades.

Home insurance, particularly within Kingston, continues to account for some of the company’s strongest growth. However, contractors’ all-risk insurance has also seen increased demand amid a wave of high-rise developments across the capital. Reflecting on the impact of Hurricane Melissa, Donaldson noted that catastrophe years often drive growth within the insurance industry, as disasters tend to remind homeowners and businesses that assets were either uninsured or undervalued.

She argued that following a hurricane, fear and regret often push consumers to increase insurance coverage and insure properties at more realistic replacement values, resulting in higher premiums across the market.

“Once it gets to three or five years without a catastrophe, prices will start to drop again,” she said.

To remain competitive, General Accident is focusing on increasing policy volumes and finding new markets to drive premium growth. Roughly 50 per cent of the company’s gross premiums continue to come from motor vehicle insurance, with the segment continuing to benefit from the launch of its Auto Smart brand in 2016 which targets underserved segments including public passenger vehicle operators and younger drivers. There was also a notable increase in investment income, which climbed 24 per cent to $170 million last year. While recent regulatory changes have given pension funds and insurance companies greater flexibility in where they can invest, the rules of the Financial Services Commission still prevent insurers from concentrating more than 20 per cent of investment assets into any single investment, forcing broader diversification across fixed income and equities.

“For an insurance company, maybe the regulation is the best thing that could happen to us because it really means that we have a widespread risk of investment assets, because they can’t all be in one. It is not concentrated. It cannot be. If that happens, then you would have failed your solvency margin,” she said.

The company’s stock price climbed approximately 49.6 per cent year over year, moving from $5.24 on May 28 last year to $7.84 at the close of trading on Wednesday, May 27.

The headquarters of General Accident Insurance Company Jamaica Limited. The insurer reported a 66.4 per cent increase in first-quarter profits, driven by regional expansion efforts in Trinidad & Tobago and Barbados.