Tuesday February 2, 2010
By DALJIT DHESI
PETALING JAYA: Great Eastern Life Assurance (M) Bhd, the country's largest and oldest insurer, is targeting RM1bil in new business premiums this year.
Last year, new business premiums stood at RM800mil. Its director and chief executive officer Koh Yaw Hui said: "The company experienced a 22% growth in new business premium in 2009. For this year, despite a competitive landscape and increasing competition from the takaful sector, especially with the issuance of the two new licences, we will continue to be aggressive to achieve double-digit growth."
Koh Yaw Hui ... 'For this year, we will continue to be aggressive to achieve double-digit growth.'
It was optimistic of achieving its goal of RM1bil in new business premiums this year in view of the improved global and local economy, he said.
The company's strong emphasis on agency, bancassurance and the younger population segment also contributed to its bullish outlook, he added.
Tied agency force is the major contributor to the company's business and last year contributed 87% of its new business premium.
According to Koh, the company would intensify its recruitment drive to attract graduates and professionals.
He said Great Eastern would also focus more on improving the professionalism, leadership and selling skills of its agency force through the Agency Transformation Programme, which was launched in 2008.
"Great Eastern's goal for 2010 is to attract graduates and professionals to comprise at least 50% of the 6,000 total new recruits this year," Koh said in an email reply.
"Go4More" was another key strategy adopted this year, he said, adding that it was designed to train agents to realise they could achieve much more amid huge market opportunities.
Special training for agents on products and selling skills would be conducted to target the underserved huge young population, he said.
New products, simplified sales processes and effective monitoring tools would be rolled out to help agents break their own "glass ceiling" and achieve a breakthrough in sales, Koh said.
The company is also gearing up its bancassurance channel through its tie-up with OCBC Bank to distribute its insurance products.
Great Eastern is looking at the underserved segment of the younger population and new entrants to the job market with little disposable income.
"We have designed unique products which can cater for their protection needs including critical illness/medical coverage and allow them to start long-term savings from as low as RM100," Koh said.
Electronic submission was another area which had helped the company enhance its efficiency, leading to faster coverage of insurance policies.
The system, which was relaunched in February last year, had boosted usage rate by agents to 80% as at end of last year.
This indicated Great Eastern's agents were focused on increasing their professionalism and efficiency and this would boost the company's business moving forward, he noted.
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