Siam Commercial Samaggi Insurance develops products with shareholder SCB

Preecha Chansiriphota, executive vice president and head of business development, said last week that the firm’s business strategy this year is to work closely with SCB, the major shareholder of the company, because SCB clients form Siam Commercial Samaggi Insurance’s main customer base.
He said new business is expected to grow continually this year thanks to SCB’s financial products, which should strengthen Siam Commercial Samaggi’s insurance business, especially in auto and health insurance.
He gave the example of debit-cardholders of SCB, who can use their card to buy insurance products. As a result, 1 million SCB debit cardholders are policy-holders.
The company targets an increase in its customer base this year to 3 million from 2 million currently.
This year it will co-develop new products with SCB to meet customer requirements. Insurance products will be different from those of other banks because its main channel is bancassurance, Preecha said.
The firm this year targets total premiums of Bt5.4 billion, of which Bt1 billion will be generated by eight new products. These include two third-class auto-insurance products, Plus Mini and One Save Save.
Premiums for the One Save Save product will be lower than those of first-class products by 40 per cent but cover 100 per cent of losses, he said.
Before launching the product, the firm conducted a study, which showed that customers want protection that covers vehicle loss and fire offering a monthly instalment option.
Therefore, auto insurance that offers full coverage with lower prices will attract buyers, Preecha said, adding that the firm believes premiums from this product for the first year will be Bt800 million. Of this, Bt500 million will be premiums from the bancassurance channel.
The company submitted a letter to the Office of Insurance Commission (OIC) applying for permission to develop a second version of One Save Save if the first is a success.