AIA Group aims to plug Asia’s protection gap
INSURANCE giant AIA Group sees huge potential for growth in Asia due to the region’s huge protection gap and low penetration of life and health insurance, according to the group’s chief marketing officer Stuart A Spencer.
“At AIA, we see tremendous growth potential across the region, driven by a huge protection gap. In a country like Thailand, there is low penetration of individual life and health insurance,” said Spencer.
“We see a big opportunity to close the protection gap. AIA has a tremendous agency force in Thailand. In addition, at the end of last year, we signed a 15-year distribution contract with Bangkok Bank to sell more protection products through their branches,” said Spencer, adding that Bangkok Bank itself has more than 1,000 branches throughout the country.
AIA’s new brand promise “Healthier, longer, better lives” was recently introduced in 18 markets across the Asia Pacific region. “It underpins our focus on being a purpose-led business, and supports our efforts to address health problems resulting from an increase in lifestyle-related diseases,” Spencer said.
“We are very concerned about the level of lifestyle diseases in Thailand. About 73 per cent of all diseases in Thailand are non-communicable,” he said, adding, “AIA Vitality is a solution to help our customers to live healthier, longer and better lives. If you take better care of yourselves, AIA will take better care of you,” he said.
“It is all about changing the behaviour of our customers, and we have a very sophisticated reward platform designed by AIA to help them change their behaviour,” added Spencer.
He said that some 250,000 Thai people were already enjoying the benefits of AIA Vitality.
“This is a game changer in the Thai insurance market, as nobody but only AIA has it,” said Spencer.
He said that AIA has 32 million customers in 18 countries in Asia.
“We have also launched the “What’s Your Why? Campaign”, led by our global ambassador David Beckham. His role is to be a motivator, encouraging people on why they should live a healthy life, and to use this ‘why’ to change their behaviour, improving their health through proper eating, regular exercise, and good living.
“Using the insight that children are a powerful motivating force for people to live healthier lives, we have launched the ‘What’s Your Why #2’ campaign, which features Beckham sharing his experiences on how to be healthy with kids across Asia. We hope the campaign will inspire people throughout the region to really consider how small changes can make a big difference in improving their health and well-being,” Spencer said
“Working with AIA, I have had the opportunity to visit many countries around Asia and I am so pleased to be back in Thailand,” said Beckham. “I really believe that small changes, like having a healthy breakfast to start each day and getting good sleep, |can have a positive impact and help us all to live healthier, longer, better lives.”
AIA Thailand on Saturday celebrated its 80th anniversary and renewed its commitment to engage customers and the community more effectively to promote an active lifestyle among Thais.
Tan Hak Lek, chief executive officer of AIA Thailand, said that AIA Thailand has provided lifelong insurance protection to its customers since 1938, together with an aspiration to improve the standard of living of Thais.
“We have become Thailand’s leading and most-trusted life insurance company and play an important role in the development of the life insurance industry.
Many factors have contributed to our success, including products and services. With more than 5.5 million individual customers and over 1.1 million participating members in our group insurance schemes in Thailand, we offer a wide range of products and services to meet the ever-changing needs of Thais throughout their life stages. AIA also develops new and innovative products and services to enhance our customers’ financial security and provide them with peace of mind,” he said.
