Tokio insurance to boost agencies

Next Monday, Mitani will replace Hiroshi Tateishi, who was promoted as general manager for international markets at Tokio Holdings in Japan.
Mitani, who will move here from Tokio Marine in Singapore, said the Thai market is more challenging than Singapore’s because Thailand is on a larger scale, so strong ties with Thai consumers and agents is his priority. Agency is the main policy distribution channel of Tokio Marine in Thailand.
Tateishi said his new job is to support the insurance business in overseas branches and Thailand is a potential market for Tokio Holdings.
“Thailand will be used for insurance expansion in neighbouring countries once the group sees benefits from the Asean Economic Community,” he said.
Tokio Holdings has no plan to set up life insurance companies in Laos or Myanmar because their populations are small and the income of their people is not high enough. Tokio Marine’s main target group is upper-income earners, including in Thailand.
Here, its average premium per policy is Bt91,000, the highest in the industry.
Sompote Keitkraival, senior executive vice president for agency, said the company is planning to capture middle-income customers to expand its pension choice insurance.
The company has strongly promoted pension choice instead of savings insurance because it has no bancassurance channel.
“To beat insurers with bancassurance channels, we have to sell different products from banks, such as pension choice,” he said. Pension choice generates 70 per cent of Tokio Marine’s total premiums.
The company is the first insurer to release first-half results, reporting total premiums of Bt1.19 billion, of which first-year premiums were Bt459 million. Gross premiums in the first half were higher than expected by 20 per cent.
Tokio Marine targets total premiums of Bt2.35 billion this year.