Asia is growing. Asia is booming. And the real numbers shared by Chief Delegates at the East Asian Insurance Congress spoke volumes of the potential lying latent in the insurance industry. We dice and splice the reports submitted by the EAIC in Macau to give you a gut-feel of the sizzling potential in each of the 12 EAIC markets, big and small, young and old.
Each of the 12 member cities reported respectable growth in both life and non-life sectors, as well as considerable growth in insurance penetration numbers.
Even Indonesia, which was struck hard by the economic slowdown of the past two years, was able to report a 12% y-o-y growth in gross written premiums, for both the life and general insurance sectors. Cambodia, the smallest market amongst the 12, reported a massive 40% growth in gross written premiums for the general sector, and a 240% increase in premiums for the life market (bearing in mind that life insurance in Cambodia had only existed for a few years).
The Philippines boasted a 7% growth in their GDP in 2015, making them the fastest growing nation in Asia, and in the same year also recorded a premium growth of 18.8% in life, and a 7% increase in general insurance premiums. This same success has them aiming for an insurance penetration of 3% of the national GDP by 2019 (up from the 2% it currently stands at).
Much of the growth for the general insurance field was driven, unsurprisingly, by motor insurance, most of which is mandatory. Standouts include Brunei, Thailand and Taiwan, where motor insurance accounted for at least 50% of the general insurance pie.
Within the life insurance sector, bancassurance proved to be a strong contender for distribution of policies, coming close to matching the efforts of the many life insurance agents that work across the region.
Always forward
Generally, the growth in the region was catalysed by government and industry initiatives to increase insurance awareness, enhance education and improve the perceived value of insurance amongst the general public.
Malaysia has recently implemented the Life Insurance and Family Takaful Framework to increase penetration and consumer knowledge, Japan has introduced several schemes to target the rapidly ageing population with great results and the Philippines insurance industry is developing a curriculum aimed at high school students to educate them on the value of insurance.
For more information and extracts from the Chief Delegates’ reports on each market: https://www.asiainsurancereview.com/Magazine/ReadMagazineArticle/aid/38665/Insurers-riding-on-local-potential