View from the top: Christina Montes De Oca, Coface North America

Christina Montes De Oca became CEO of Coface North America in September 2025 after serving as U.S. trade credit practice leader at Marsh. She spent 19 years at Euler Hermes, now Allianz Trade, in a series of leadership roles culminating in responsibility for its North American commercial business. She began her career in financial services before moving into telecommunications and entered trade credit insurance as a sales executive. She recently spoke with Business Insurance Editor Gavin Souter about the evolution of trade and credit risks and coverage. Edited excerpts follow.

Q: What has changed most in how companies think about trade and credit risk over the past decade?

A: I’m not sure anything has really changed significantly. It always depends on the business environment that we’re in and what’s happening at the moment. That’s what drives what businesses are looking for.

Today, what’s a little different is just the amount of uncertainty we’re dealing with. You have AI and data and what they mean going forward. You have shifting tariffs.

We’re living through a lot of uncertainty and change right now, while at the same time we have access to more information, data and AI to crunch all of that. Today it’s the uncertainty of everything happening in the moment, but it’s not very different from other business cycles. The business cycle is generally what drives interest in trade credit. Right now, it’s uncertainty.

Q: You have argued that companies often buy trade credit insurance only after suffering a bad debt or walking away from a business opportunity. Why do they continue to approach it that way?

A: At least in North America, we still have a product that isn’t as widely utilized or as well known as it is in other parts of the world.

When an event happens and you suffer a loss, you start looking for how to avoid that situation in the future. That’s when you come across trade credit insurance.

If you look at the middle-market property/casualty broker market, trade credit usually isn’t at the top of the list of products being discussed with clients. We have an untapped marketing opportunity where it’s just not top of mind until you have a problem or a loss and start looking for a solution.

Q: If a CFO asked how trade credit insurance could help grow revenue rather than simply protect the balance sheet, what would you tell them?

A: It gives you the opportunity to take on business you might not otherwise pursue.

The opportunity is broader than trade credit insurance alone, if you look at what’s happening with business intelligence and data. When you look at: How do I prospect? How do I find the right clients? How do I onboard them, monitor them, protect them and collect from them? I would tell a CFO that you need to go after the right type of clients, monitor, protect and make sure you have the ability to collect. When you look at it through that lens, you don’t have to walk away from business if you pull all those pieces together.

Today the market is somewhat fragmented. You have information providers, technology platforms, trade credit insurers and collections companies. Pulling all of those pieces together is critical and it allows you to grow if you’ve got a robust and sustainable end-to-end process.

Some businesses avoid areas because they don’t have expertise there, and that’s really where we can plug in.

Q: Can you give an example of where better credit intelligence has enabled companies to pursue business they might otherwise have declined?

A: We’re seeing it a lot, especially when companies combine business intelligence on the front end with trade credit insurance on the back end.

It’s highly utilized in the commodities sector. Companies use it to identify the right prospects, onboard them correctly, establish the right credit limits and then protect that business going forward.

Manufacturing is another sector that makes extensive use of credit insurance. As we’ve become more globally integrated, companies are looking at export markets and trying to identify the right companies in the right places. The tariff situation adds complexity to everything today.

Q: How has tariff uncertainty changed your conversations with clients?

A: If tariffs were stable and businesses knew what they were going to be, companies could make the necessary adjustments. It’s the fact that they’re constantly changing that creates the most uncertainty.

Early on, I sat with clients who had planned out how they were going to respond. They had resources in place to help their own customers navigate the situation. It’s when tariffs are constantly changing — they’re up, they’re down, they’re on, they’re off — that managing them becomes difficult.

The question then becomes: Do you absorb the cost? Do you pass it on to your customers? Can you pass it on? What does it do to your balance sheet?

I think it’s not the tariffs themselves; it’s the constantly changing status.

Trade credit insurance doesn’t specifically cover tariff impacts, but it does help protect businesses from the financial strain those impacts can create. That’s where we provide a backstop if things go poorly.

Q: Where do you see AI adding the most value in trade credit risk?

A: AI is transforming every industry, and we want our workforce to be prepared. Internally, we’re investing in AI education and upskilling employees at every level.

As it affects the future, we’re all still watching and learning. It will influence how you develop products, automate processes and analyze risk.

Our success will always be driven by the capabilities, creativity and expertise of our people and how they use those tools so we’ll continue to watch, upskill and evolve.

Automation has already been part of this business for years, it’s just evolving much more quickly with today’s technology. We’ve been using automation in risk decisions and processing to make things faster.

Going forward, it’s about how you evolve your products and internal processes.