Lloyd’s Appoints Daniel Revilla as New Latin American Head

Lloyd’s has named Daniel Revilla as the specialist insurance market’s new head of Latin America. Based in Mexico City, he will also serve as the company’s country manager in Mexico while working on increasing business throughout the region.

There is a lot of opportunity for more insurance in Latin America. A joint Lloyd’s and Cambridge University study, the City Risk Index, found that $520 billion USD of GDP is at risk throughout the region due to threats that vary from natural disasters to cyber-losses. But insurance penetration rates remain low. At just 3.1%, penetration is barely half that of the global average of 6.1% and well below the rates seen throughout the developed world.

It is with this in mind that Lloyd’s puts Revilla, a former executive of both Swiss-based insurer Zurich and Swiss-based bank UBS, at the helm. His knowledge of Latin America has also been advanced by stints earlier in his career with Telefonica Sistemas and AFP Integra in Peru.

“As cities expand across the region so does the value of assets requiring protection, and we see significant potential for development in specialist insurance and reinsurance,” said Revilla after his appointment. “Lloyd’s can help support the expansion of insurance penetration across Latin America to protect economies at these critical stages of growth.”

Vincent Vandendael, director of global markets for Lloyd’s, praised Revilla’s acumen for strategy and thinks he will be a great fit to lead further growth in both Central and South America. Given its potential, the region is becoming an important part of the firm’s expansion plans in fast-growing economies.

“We have a strong established presence in Brazil, and in the past year we have expanded our footprint opening offices in Colombia and Mexico,” said Vandendael. “We will continue to build on our business relationships and offer new capacity and specialist products to support the growth of the industry across the region.”