Life insurance market sees race for increasing market share

The life insurance market is witnessing implicit but severe racings on market share. According to the statistics from the Ministry of Finance (MoF), till the end of 2010, Prudential Vietnam accounted for 37 percent of the market share and followed by Bao Viet Life Insurance with 16.35 percent, Manulife with 14.96 percent, ACE Life (7.58 percent), AIA Vietnam (7.13 percent) and Dai-ichi Life Vietnam with 6.28 percent of the market share.

However, the market seems to see implicit waves because the market share on new contracts had significant changes. Taking the leading position was still Prudential Vietnam with 38.85 percent and then Bao Viet Life Insurance with 22.18 percent, ACE Life (11.68 percent), Dai-ichi Life Vietnam (10.76 percent), Manulife (10.33 percent), AIA Vietnam (9.14 percent) and the remaining insurers accounted for insignificant market share.

2010 marked a booming of ACE Life and Dai-ichi Life Vietnam when these two insurers surpassed Manulife and AIA Vietnam in terms of premium market share from new contracts. With the spectacular efforts and exceeding AIA Vietnam to stand at the fourth position with more than 10 percent market share of premium from new insurance contracts, the plan of 11 percent market share on premium by 2012 seems not to be too hard for Dai-ichi Life Vietnam.

After a short period of neglect caused by the event that Prudential announced to buyback AIA, leader board of AIA Vietnam is speeding up with a hope of gaining about 15-20 percent of market share in a near future.

In 2011, AIA Vietnam will focus on enhancing the agent system and distribution channel via partners and increasing the operation capacity of distribution channels, Huynh Thanh Phong, AIA Vietnam’s chair of membership board said.

Not only aforementioned large life insurance companies but also smaller insurers are also racing to occupy the market share. With the growth of up to 113 percent in 2010, Korea Life Vietnam quickly occupied 3 percent of the market share in premium from new insurance contracts, being ranked amongst life insurers with high growth in 2010.

As evaluated by the Insurance Supervision Department under MoF, Dai-ichi Life Vietnam, ACE Life and Korea Life gained the best insurance contracts in the market in 2010 with the average fee higher than the average level of the market (the average fee of three above insurers was equal to 7.34 million dong per contract, 7.17 million dong/contract and 6.96 million dong/contract), while the average level of the market was only 4.9 million dong per contract.

Also according to the department, the life insurance market in 2011 will continue to maintain the growth momentum like previously, with a total expected premium of about 15.434 trillion dong, growing 12 percent against 2010′s, of which, the revenue from new contracts is expected to reach 21.5 percent.
The associated insurance products and products for the poor will develop and set its foothold in the insurance market this year.
- Dautu

Tags: Vietnam Life insurance market