Personal accident policies firms' new focus
Ocean Life Insurance plans to double premiums from personal-accident and life-insurance riders to 20-30 per cent of total premiums in three or four years from single digits now to balance its portfolio and maximise return on investment.
President Nusara Banyatpiyaphod said yesterday that current economic volatility was having an impact on return on investment, so companies that provide guaranteed insurance products might look for other products that help balance returns.
Ocean Life will also focus more on personal-accident (PA) and whole-life and riders to cope with the market volatility, she said.
The good selling point of PA policies is a relatively low premium but high protection. Consumers are also paying more attention to risk, so the company is shifting its focus to selling PA and life-insurance riders.
Ocean Life yesterday launched a PA product that doubles maximum coverage of Bt1 million and doubles the coverage over holidays.
The company will spend Bt50 million of its Bt170-million marketing budget to advertise the new product on television to reach the mass market.
It projects premiums of Bt500 million from the new product, while total premiums from PA products are forecast at between Bt700 million and Bt800 million this year.
Ocean Life has 7 per cent of the PA market.
The company will upgrade itself to a public company this year. The Insurance Commission requires all local insurers to become public companies by 2013.
Ocean Life next aims to list on the Stock Exchange of Thailand in 2014.
The company has raised its new-business target this year to Bt5 billion from Bt4.5 billion after new business in the first two months beat expectations, soaring by 47 per cent year on year to Bt1.04 billion.
“We have few bancassurance channels, so we have to chase premiums aggressively at the beginning of the year from our agents. We believe total premiums this year could rise to Bt15.1 billion from Bt13 billion last year,” Nusara said.
