BLA shifts away from short-term

Bangkok Life Assurance (BLA) is targeting at least 17% growth in new premiums this year, partly supported by a low base effect as the company underwent portfolio restructuring last year.

The insurer’s 18.2% contraction in new premiums to 11.1 billion baht last year should partly support the strong growth target, said BLA president Vipon Vorasowharid, who took the helm on March 8 to succeed Chone Sophonpanich.

“We expect to meet our target by emphasising expanding our protection and health products and improving our agent performance,” he said.

The company has decreased the portion of short-term insurance lasting less than five years to cope with the low interest rate environment.

“Ideally, we want to have a high portion of medium- and long-term insurance policies, but we will not wind down the whole chunk of short-term ones as some customers still prefer them,” said Mr Vipon.

He said commercial banks’ high-income customers are largely greying and tend to buy more short-term insurance products.

“This year we will try to keep the percentage of short-term insurance policies below 20% of total premiums,” said Mr Vipon.

Renewal premium growth this year is expected to outpace last year’s 3.1%.

The company posted 43.3 billion baht in 2016 total premiums, down 3% from 2015. Some 60% came from bancassurance, with 40% from its sales agents. BLA had 14,000 agents as of last year.

“We aim to improve sales agents’ performance this year through seminars, training and providing better electronics infrastructure to help them do their job more efficiently,” he said.

Net profit rose 24.5% to 5.12 billion baht last year.

BLA shares closed yesterday on the SET at 51 baht, down 50 satang, in trade worth 29.6 million baht.