ICBA members collaborate to solve buyer capacity issues for a major ICBA member client

By Mark Attley

It's a marketer's function to present and communicate the attributes of an organization in the most favourable light possible to the target audience. Since the "proof of the pudding is in the eating", how good we say or think we are is irrelevant unless our customers experience it and tell us so. ICBA's mantra is "trade credit solutions for multinational companies" and when two or more ICBA members collaborate to bring a solution to a client, then we are fulfilling our mandate and "walking the talk".

2009 was the credit insurance industry's annus horribilis (if the queen can have one so can we) with credit availability drying up. As the economy starts to expand in 2010, there are signs that insurers' appetites are improving, but buyer capacity continues to be the challenge in industries where prices are volatile and beginning to rapidly increase. Compounding this situation is the fact that not all geographic regions are recovering equally. Country risk is a major concern to underwriters.

Recently, ICBA Canada and ICBA USA worked together to find a solution for a very important client (they're all important but this one was particularly large). This client had significant sales opportunites to buyers for which obtaining credit insurance was proving difficult. In less than a month, with the collaboration of the client and drawing on the resources available to another local ICBA member, an innovative structure was arranged to secure the needed buyer capacity. Critical sales are now being made to the client's most important buyers. The client is delighted and a strong relationship has been made stronger.

The details of this deal are unimportant, what is important is that ICBA is not just an alliance of exceptional credit insurance brokers from around the world, it is an organization that achieves results. When that happens, ICBA wins, clients win, and those who do not work with an ICBA broker "do not know what they do not know" (Wouter de Jonge, ICBA Holland). The collective experience and market knowledge brought to bear when ICBA brokers are engaged is immense and each day ICBA members' clients benefit from it first hand.

(Mark Attley is an ICBA Canada broker and co-founder and President of Millennium CreditRisk Management Limited – a credit and political risk insurance specialist – www.mcm.ca. ICBA is the world’s largest team of independently-owned, specialist trade credit insurance brokerages. Partners combine local service with global coordination to provide trade credit and political risk insurance solutions for multinational companies.)