Insights from ALSUM 2025

8. December 2025

By: Sean M. Dalton, Vice President, IUMI and Maria Fernanda Alonso, Vice President  (Head Marine Latin America & Caribbean), Swiss Re.

Sean Dalton writes…

In late October ALSUM hosted the 13th annual Latin American Insurance Conference from October 20th to 23rd in Cartagena, Colombia. The theme of this year’s conference was “Towards Sustainable Growth in the Age of Data” and the agenda and attendees included marine (re)insurers, brokers, adjusters, attorneys and other key service providers.

In my capacity as IUMI Vice President and Executive Committee Member, it was a privilege to attend the conference for the first time representing IUMI. ALSUM afforded me several opportunities to engage with their membership including joining the Cargo Committee Meeting, participating in an interview with ALSUM President Arturo Posada, and presenting an overview and debrief from the IUMI 2025 Singapore Conference followed by a Q & A session with Maria Fernanda Alonso of Swiss Re and Efrain Ignacio Sora of Hartford. The comprehensive agenda addressed a number of key topics of importance to their members.

One session I found to be very interesting was an interactive discussion in the “fishbowl” format focused on growth and profitability in marine insurance and how to manage portfolios with a long-term vision.  The “fish bowl” approach is a meeting structure where a group of participants discuss a topic in a smaller, central circle (or fishbowl) with the larger group forming an outer circle. This allows participants to rotate in and out of the inner circle encouraging a dynamic approach and facilitating active attendee engagement. While my language skills were a limitation, I did venture into the “fishbowl” a couple of times to share perspectives on the topics discussed.

I very much appreciated the opportunity to join ALSUM and I thank its members for their wonderful hospitality. It was an excellent opportunity to learn about the market and potential opportunities for IUMI and ALSUM to work together.

Maria Fernanda Alonso writes…

The ALSUM community is looking forward to learning about IUMI and contributing their expertise to marine underwriters across the world. ALSUM’s membership of IUMI was well received by the conference and there were great expectations about the work the two organisations could do together.

Highlights of the conference included the deliveries of the “observatories” which included tools for marine professionals. The “legal observatory” introduced a “court ruling tracker” which aims to highlight court cases that are most relevant to the maritime and insurance sectors. Each case includes commentaries from both local and international experts. A marine claims management guide was delivered by the “claims and loss prevention observatory”. This highlights the process and the main documents required for claims handling.

It was agreed that the topic of “sustainable growth” needed to include a range of new voices and so the closing panel presented “new gen”, an initiative focused on young professionals with the objective of growing talent acquisition and retention. During next year, ALSUM will be working closely with a group of volunteers to develop this programme.

The agenda closed with a field trip to the Port of Cartagena, which ranks third in performance worldwide according to The Container Port Performance Index (1). The administration was most welcoming and provided first hand insights for the participants. As we say in Spanish, the congress was “cerró con broche de oro” or “sealed with gold”.