Uni.

Asia Life seeks more partners for bancassurance

By Jeeva Arulampalam
jeeva@nstp.com.my
2009/12/07

MID-SIZED insurer Uni.Asia Life Assurance Bhd is looking to partner more banks to grow its bancassurance
channel, especially since its support service and infrastructure are developed based on multiple distribution
strategy.

Bancassurance refers to banks selling insurance policies.

"We are in talks with banks, but the tie-ups will depend on our partners and when they are ready. Since we are
stronger in alternative than tied-agency, we have a better understanding of our distributors' needs in servicing
their customers," Uni.Asia Life chief executive officer Ooi Say Teng told Business Times in an interview.

With four existing bank partners, Uni.Asia analyses the banks' customer base before designing suitable
products to be delivered through the best channel.

"This complements our bank partners in their overall marketing initiatives especially in wealth management.
Aside from this, these efforts are supported by individualised sales development activities of each bank
partner," said its chief officer for bancasurance and alternative distribution, Raymond Lew.

Lew added that the insurer works with the banks on the customer's lifecycle needs which ranges from savings,
protection and even education.

Ooi said that before the financial crisis, the trend was for a balanced portfolio with investment-linked products
but there has been a shift towards more protection-typed products post-crisis.

For the six months ended June 30 2009, Uni.Asia Life has become the market leader in the regular premium
segment for bancassurance, with a market share of 36 per cent.

This was achieved despite having to contend with several challenges this year, including the liberalisation of
the financial market, economic volatility, competitive product development and the introduction of the risk
based capital.

Ooi said Uni.Asia Life has been developing and expanding its other sales channels such as telemarketing,
direct marketing and worksite marketing in the past year.

"We also cannot over-emphasise on the importance of talent management and competencies development.
Instead of sourcing for talent outside, we fill the requirements within by identifying the competencies need of
our company and developing these skills with our existing people," he said.

On the insurer's outlook for 2010, Ooi said the group hopes to maintain double-digit growth in regular
premiums.

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"As our financial year ends on March 31 2010, we haven't really looked into it (the full-year growth of 2010)
in detail. But over the last three years, our growth rate has been 80 to 100 (per cent) for regular premiums," he
said.

It was previously reported that the insurer hopes to grow its regular premium business by 85 per cent to reach
its target of RM260 million in new business premium for its present fiscal year.

Meanwhile, Uni.Asia Life chief officer for finance and life operations, Ho Teck Seng, said the insurer is
spending some RM4 million on the roll-out of its latest information technology initiative, the workbench
collaboration concept, that runs into next year.

"The system allows our staff to have a complete view of our customers' information, helping to improve
turnaround time for providing information regarding customers' policies," he added.

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