On 21 December 1945, the cooperative insurer and ICMIF member Sancor Seguros was formed in the town of Sunchales (Argentina). Now, 75 years later, Sancor Seguros has celebrated its anniversary with two events.
A formal ceremony was held on the morning of 21 December 2020, which brought together government authorities, the President and CEO of Grupo Sancor Seguros with the unveiling of a plaque to commemorate the 75 years of the cooperative insurer. The plaque is situated on the cornerstone of a future Interreligious Complex, which will be in Sancor’s urban development and will seek to promote dialogue and mutual enrichment between different religions.
Also during the celebrations, the inauguration of the new building of the Cooperative Institute of Higher Education (ICES) took place. The new Institute is also located in Ciudad Verde urban development in the city of Sunchales. The building took approximately 24 months to be completed and the new space will house the ICES facilities and the offices of the Fundación Grupo Sancor Seguros, on which the Institute depends. Sustainability is always high on the agenda in any project from Sancor Seguros and so a key focus in the design and the build of the Institute was to ensure a sustainable energy performance and use of sustainable construction procedures and standards.
The ICES building is part of the project of the Scientific and Technological Educational Campus created by Sancor Seguros, which will also be the location of the new CITES Headquarters (Centre for Technological, Business and Social Innovation) and an Auditorium for shared use between the various entities of the Sancor Seguros Group.
At night, the anniversary celebrations continued with a virtual event that was streamed live on the Sancor Seguros YouTube channel. The event included the unveiling of a special corporate video created specially for the anniversary and also an interactive book which celebrated the 75-year history of the insurer.
In addition to celebrating its 75th anniversary the insurer is also celebrating a good year in strategic and financial terms as the end of 2020 sees Sancor Seguros at the top or the Argentinian insurance market with a market share of close to 9%. Sancor Seguros current projections predict that the organisation will continue leading the market, both in Argentina and also in its subsidiaries in Brazil, Uruguay and Paraguay. The insurer has 7,250,000 policyholders currently and a network of more than 8,300 Advisory Producers, this is in addition to its 3,300 direct employees. Due to the cooperative nature of the organisation and its social responsibility policy, also predicts sharing surpluses with the communities and members that it serves.
Its links with the cooperative world extend to numerous institutions, such as: International Cooperative Alliance (ICA); International Cooperatives and Mutual Insurance Federation (ICMIF); International Cooperative and Mutual Insurance Federation / Regional Association for The Americas (ICMIF/Americas); Provincial Council of Cooperatives and Mutuals of the Province of Santa Fe; Confederación Intercooperativa Agropecuaria Cooperativa Ltda. (CONINAGRO); INTERCOOP Editora Cooperativa Ltda.; International Union of Cooperativism and School Mutualism (UICE); Federal Association of Educators in Cooperativism and Mutualism (AFECYM); Célula de América Latina de Cooperativismo y Mutualismo Escolar (CALCME) and, at the local level, Casa Cooperativa de Provisión Sunchales Ltda.
Over the last 75 years, Sancor Seguros has received a number of awards including the 2019 Fortuna Award for the Best Insurance Company and first place in the Prestige Awards 2020 as decided by the Advisory Producers, who again elected the cooperative to be the most prestigious insurer in Argentina.
The celebrations were attended by Ariel Guarco, President of the International Co-operative Alliance, who praised the insurer on his Twitter page saying: “An anniversary as important as the one we are celebrating today speaks not only of the passage in time of an emblematic cooperative for our country such as Sancor Seguros. It speaks of the ability of this type of company to grow alongside its partners, alongside its workers and the communities in which they operate, without ever losing their identity. I want to celebrate with you today that desire to associate and cooperate that those who gave the kickoff in 1945 to what is today a leading entity in the Argentine insurance market, and with a strong presence in other countries of the region, had. And I want to celebrate your ongoing commitment to the cooperative movement nationally and internationally.”
