Thaivivat turns to health policies
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Thaivivat Insurance will increase its marketing budget by at least 25 per cent in 2012, strongly promoting new health-insurance policies after missing its premiums target this year.
Jiraphant Asvatanakul, president and chief executive officer, said the company had to increase its premiums aggressively next year, especially in the health-insurance segment, to offset a decline in motor-insurance revenue.
Thaivivat’s main portfolio is motor insurance, representing 70 per cent of total premiums.
He said the lower sales of vehicles since the tsunami in Japan early this year and the flooding in Thailand later on affected auto production, and this was the main factor contributing to lower premiums this year. They are expected to fall to between Bt1.8 billion and Bt1.9 billion, lower than the target of Bt2.1 billion, he said.
Normal car production is expected to resume in the first quarter and the output will be seen in the second quarter. In the meantime, the company will shift its focus to health insurance in the first half to offset lower revenue from motor-insurance premiums, Jiraphant said.
Thaivivat plans to introduce at least two health-insurance products, hoping to increase premiums in the health-coverage segment to 15-20 per cent of the total in 2012, up from 10-15 per cent this year.
Jiraphant said the flood experience would lead to rising demand for health insurance.
Brand awareness is important in selling health insurance because this segment has more competition from both life and non-life insurance firms. Thaivivat therefore needs to increase its marketing budget by at least 25 per cent for next year, mostly focusing on its new health-insurance policies, he said.
Moreover, the company will increase payment channels such as automated teller machines and counter services as the existing channels such as credit cards and telemarketing are not sufficient to serve customers.
“Too few payment channels has been a barrier to bringing in premiums as customers have been inconvenienced during the flooding,” he said.
