Insurer eyes double-digit growth

The company is celebrating its fifth anniversary this year, after launching in Singapore in 2010 as a registered insurance operator.

It launched in Hong Kong as a registered insurer in 2012, and in Thailand in 2013 as a registered broker.

DirectAsia.com started its full operating service in Thailand, in January last year.

“We want to emphasise our positioning on better value and services for safe drivers. Our insurance partner in Thailand – Falcon – is a strong company, hence we don’t have a plan to be a registered insurer there, as we did in Singapore and Hong Kong,” said Pauline Png, chief marketing officer of the group.

In Singapore and Hong Kong, DirectAsia.com provides three kinds of insurance: travel, motor and motorcycles.

In Thailand, however, the company concentrates solely on motor insurance, and especially first-class coverage, because it can guarantee lower prices than other online direct operators, she said. 

The group services more than 100,000 customers across the three markets, and in Thailand, the number of clients has already exceeded 10,000, exceeding its target, she added.

Due to the number of private cars, the Kingdom offers greater opportunity for expansion than Singapore and Hong Kong, meaning that in its business plan, the market will generate the largest income to the group by 2020.

Thailand has around 14 million cars, against 6 million in Singapore and Hong Kong, both of which are of a fixed size due to a number of limiting factors. 

The company has a 5-per-cent share in Singapore, and 3 per cent of the Hong Kong market.

In Singapore, people buying a car must apply for licence that costs 60,000 Singaporean dollars (Bt1.54 million) and is valid for only 10 years, because the island-state is a small country and too many vehicles on the roads would bring about total traffic chaos.

The much larger Thai market can, therefore, help the company expand, with Thai business growth targeted by the group to be in double digits annually, she said.

Png visited Thailand last week to promote DirectAsia.com at its booth at the “Thailand International Motor Expo 2015”, which gave her a hands-on opportunity to communicate the company’s proposition to motorists.

Whilst in the Kingdom, she shared overviews of the company’s marketing strategy in its three markets, each of which she said was experiencing the rising trend of e-commerce, with mobile devices the means of choice in searching for information before making a decision to buy.

The challenge for DirectAsia.com in respect of marketing in Thailand is how to assure customers that they can be confident in using the online channel when purchasing insurance, in much the same way as confidence has risen for other products and services bought via e-commerce, she said.

Thais are already more confident and comfortable about using services such as Uber Taxi and Grabtaxi, so the company hopes insurance will be the same, she added.

TV advertising is currently the main means for DirectAsia.com in communicating with the Thai public, as it wants to show the market that even though it is an online insurer, people are the key element in servicing insurance, from selling a policy through to the claims process and repair.

The ‘human touch’ is, therefore, the importance message it tries to get across via TV advertising, said the chief marketing officer. 

In Singapore, a staff member taking a call from a customer who has been involved in a motor accident is in charge of the entire process, from receiving the claim through to the vehicle being fixed and the garage delivering it to the customer, Png said. 

The same approach will be adopted by the company in the Thai market soon, she added.