Generalife targets double-digit growth

Generali Life Assurance (Thailand) is aiming to vault to the No 1 position in group insurance in the next three to four years from No 8 at present, country manager and chief executive officer Keith Brooks said.

Brooks said the company had not felt any impact from the political turmoil and the global economic crisis as reflected by the 25-per-cent growth in total premium, from Bt751 million as of September 2007 to Bt942 million as of September this year.

The individual life assurance business expanded 58 per cent while its group life assurance business grew 2 per cent in the same period with a 100 per cent premium renewal.

However, its premium growth dropped in October as customers panicked about financial problems of foreign assurance companies.

Generali's strong points included its "AA" credit rating by Standard & Poor's, its networks in over 100 countries, and a trust in the company by many blue-chip firms around the world.

"Although the economic crisis may increase unemployment, it is not significant as the Thai economy is still growing even though there has been a setback from the global economic crisis," Brooks said. "Therefore, I see no problem in Generali having a double-digit growth, at least 10 per cent in terms of new premium next year," he added.

Meanwhile, he thought the difficult mission was to find a bank partner to start its bancassurance business.

"We came later than our competitors, therefore all banks already had their insurance company partners or they had their own life and non-life insurance subsidiaries. We've been trying to find a bank partner for three to four years and next year, one of our main targets is still to find a bank partner. Besides, we need to make our brand more well-known among individual customers," said Brooks.

Previously, the company used agencies as one of its distribution channels but high competition made the company end the agency channel and use only telemarketing. Generali Life Assurance is now ranked the second largest telemarketing insurance firm in terms of new premiums compared with other players.

Brook said the Thai insurance business will grow in the same manner as in Europe and the bancassurance channel will become more popular and replace the agency channel. "That's' why the company doesn't want to waste time in developing the agency channel and is more focused on finding a bank partner," he said.

Generali Group is based in Italy and has operated the insurance business for 177 years. Its current individual life assurance business networks are in more than 40 countries, while the employee benefit or group life business network are in more than 100 countries. It started its operations here in 2002 as Generali Life Assurance (Thailand) Company and Generali Insurance (Thailand) Company.