Federal Pacific Insurance and Finance (Fedpac) operations in the Kingdom of Tonga celebrated 20 years of service in Tonga at a cocktail event in the capital Nuku'alofa, on 16 May 2024.
The celebration was held at the Taufa’ahau Tupou IV Domestic Wharf Building and attended by the Prime Minister of Tonga, Hon. Hu'akavameiliku, members of Cabinet, government officials, private sector partners and Fedpac Customers.
The Hon. Prime Minister gave the key address of the evening touching on the company’s on-going operations and its support of sport, education and tourism initiatives in the Kingdom.
The Prime Minister congratulated the company for continuing to operate despite the many challenges of the last few years and encouraged the company to expand its Tonga operations to other islands in the country.
He issued a challenge to the company to keep growing and bringing a Pacific-grown company to look after the unique insurance and finance needs of the region.
Group Spokesperson and General Manager for Fedpac Insurance, Namulau’ulu Papalii Sami Leota, said the event was an important milestone for Tonga Operations to celebrate.
“The Group had related companies operating in Tonga since 1994, however Finance and Insurance services began in 2004 with only four staff, but today we have over 25 team members, which is a testament to the growth of the Company,” he said.
Country Manager – Fedpac Insurance, Mele Saini Latu, said the company has had its share of challenges since establishment, some good and bad times, but the company had weathered them due to the strong partnership between the local team and Regional Support and strong Re-Insurance arrangements.
“We have learned many things in the past 20 years, and we can say that we gained experience and understanding of the community's finance and insurance needs but, most importantly, we have various types of risks both in Government and Private sector business.
Federal Pacific Finance is the largest private non-bank finance institution providing small to medium credit opportunities for Tongan people and Tongan businesses.
“The Finance branch is run locally by Stanley Mafoa and his hard-working team.”
Namulau’ulu said he was grateful that the company's claims ability was tested and completed within this period, including four cyclones, a tsunami, volcanic eruption, floods and a riot, as well as the normal claims.
“These claims were put through our usual process and were settled quickly, thanks to the support of our Reinsurance and Regional Underwriting team”.
“Fedpac prides itself in the Pacific as a Company who handled, assessed and paid out all genuine claims promptly”, he said.
Pacific seen as high-risk zone
One of the biggest challenges Fedpac Insurance faces is to be able to secure good re-insurance treaties. Re-Insurance underwriters see the Pacific as high-risk zone, consequently many who had been writing business in the Pacific region had pulled out, or made terms very costly.
Namulau’ulu said the company has been able to maintain the support of reinsurance underwriters (e.g. Lloyds of London, PWS East Asia) that the company has dealt with from the start and maintains a strong partnership.
“We are grateful to the Government of Tonga for their support of our operations in this beautiful country, when we proposed our business all those years ago, we pledged that we came to stay with the goal of offering alternative and competitive Insurance and Finance products and we are happy to report that is exactly what we continue to do,” said Namulau’ulu.
Namulau’ulu also acknowledged the hard work of the Country Managers, Mele Saini Latu and Stanley Mafoa (Finance) and the dedicated team of local staff.
He was joined at the celebrations by Fedpac General Manager, Fuimaono Malcolm Johnston and Country Manager, Ford Hyundai Samoa, Simon Fruean.
Fedpac Insurance and Finance began trading in Apia in 1999 and have since set up offices in Tonga, Cook Islands, Timor Leste, Fiji and Vanuatu with support provided by Regional HO in New Zealand and London. The company continues to look for more opportunities in the Asia-Pacific region.
Namulau’ulu acknowledged the FPG Board of Directors for support given and in particular, Chairman Papalii Alan Hutchison in continuing to pursue the vision of his late father, and Group Founder Alistair Hutchison.
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#7938 Sponsored Media Release, sponsored by Federal Pacific Insurance and Finance (Fedpac), 20 May - 20 June 2024.
