Bupa sets three strategies for growth in Thai health

It also last week opened a new country head office to support business expansion as it looks to its next stage of growth in the market.
Ben Assanasen, the new managing director of Bupa Health Insurance (Thailand), said it would focus on three core strategic areas.
The first is to grow its distribution network to reach more customers, opening a number of new retail branches, doubling the number of agents it works with and developing commercial partnerships to access new customers across Thailand.
Second, it will innovate new healthcare products and services. He said Bupa Thailand would launch a number of new health and travel insurance products next year, take more of its customer services on to digital platforms and roll out new services focused on the health of client companies’ employees.
The third strategy is to offer high-quality health and wellness advice. Specialist advice will be provided by phone to its customers, while it offers new digital applications and expands its hospital network across Thailand.
Ben said the new country head office was a reaffirmation of Bupa’s commitment to Thailand and its aim to be a major part of the healthcare system here.
“We have set ourselves ambitious targets for growth through 2020, all founded around Bupa’s purpose of longer, healthier, happier lives. |With our new strategic areas of focus for the business, we are committed to growing in Thailand and offering more people access to high-quality and affordable healthcare,” he |said.
David Fletcher, managing director of Bupa’s international development markets division, said the UK-based company had operated in Thailand for more than 30 years, creating a very successful business that is now the leading specialist health insurer in the market.
The opening of the new country head office represents an important milestone in the next stage of Bupa’s growth in Thailand, which will be a core part of the company’s future growth in Asia, he said.
Separately, Thais’ rising awareness of health issues would be a key driver of the continuing growth of the life-insurance industry this year, said Sara Lamsam, president of the Thai Life Assurance Association.
The association previously predicted that premium income this year could expand by 7 per cent, and after the first 10 months, this target looked attainable thanks to health insurance, he said.
Thai consumers have become more aware of their health and the wellness trend is booming, so premium income will be higher than last year’s total of between Bt30 billion and Bt40 billion.
Most health protection will be a rider of whole life insurance, and |the association believes that premium income from health protection alone could grow by 15 per cent this year.