Manulife Insurance (Thailand) will aggressively expand its number of agents and partners next year, while launching more life-assurance products linked with investment.
President and chief executive officer Christopher Teo said the company would continue to focus its attention on agents as the main distribution channel.
Manulife currently has 600 agents, a number that it plans to double in the next year.
"Most life assurers want to recruit regional-level agents, who take care of many agents, but Manulife will focus at the unit-manager level, because they are still young and active; besides it is easier to train them," said Teo.
He said the company had received an overall licence for its life-assurance agents to sell mutual funds. Manulife will now train each of them to obtain a licence to sell both life assurance and mutual-fund products in the first quarter of next year.
Manulife operates two businesses in Thailand, as a life-assurance company and an asset-management company.
Current life-assurance products in Thailand are very traditional, but the company plans to introduce more investment-linked products to customers.
Regarding other distribution channels, Teo said the company had signed a three-year contract with a major mart. It is also in talks with two large Thai commercial banks about their becoming partners.
"We are considering which life-assurance product should be sold in the branches of our partners. Next month we will have a pilot, while next year we will officially sell the product at the branches," he said.
He added that Manulife's performance was still below the Thai industry's growth level of 15 per cent, but next year the company would be able to make up the shortfall.
During the mutual-fund fair, SET in the City 2009, which is being held until Sunday, Manulife customers who commit to a life-assurance premium of at least Bt200,000 will receive a BlackBerry for free. They can pay the premium in instalments of three to six months.