Insurance market in 2010 to be exciting

Vietnam’s insurance market in 2010 is forecast to be very exciting. The latest source from Ministry of Finance’s (MoF) Insurance Supervision Management Department said that this year MoF will license 7-10 insurance firms (both non-life and life insurers) in Vietnam.

Factually, Vietnam’s insurance is evaluated to be the highly potential market in Asia. The whole market only has over six million life insurance contracts and small volume of contracts of other kinds.

Following the success impetus of 2009, the insurers have announced good performance in the start of 2010. In Q1, total premium of ACE Life grew by 130 percent year-on-year. According to the firm’s general director Lam Hai Tuan, although not yet reaching the expected target in Q1, the achieved results of ACE Life also proved the big efforts of business team in the context that the global economy has not really escaped from the crisis threats.
Annual growth of turnover in new insurance contracts of Dai-ichi Life Vietnam during the first three months of 2010 also jumped 61 percent against 2009.

After one year of operation (from last April), yearly insurance premium of Korea Life Vietnam till late April reached 65 billion dong respectively.

Business results of non-life insurers in Jan-March were also very impressive. Bao Minh gained profit after-tax of 87 billion dong and total insurance premium of 700 billion dong, PVI with 883 billion dong in principal insurance turnover, accounting for 22.3 percent of the market share.

Ending March, the non-life insurance market attained 3.965 trillion dong of principal insurance turnover, a year-on-year growth of 32.5 percent, reported Vietnam Insurers Assocociation. Leading the market was Bao Viet 926 billion dong, PVI 883 billion dong, Bao Minh 665 billion dong, Pjico 332 billion dong and PTI 118 billion dong.

Although achieving a good start, specialists still said that 2010 will see many challenges for insurance companies. Due to the birth of new insurers in 2010, the market share competition will become tenser. In this year early, most life insurers announced to open more business offices and agencies or customer care centres. As planned, Korea Life Vietnam will inaugurate the third office in Hanoi and another in Binh Duong province till the year end.

Dai-ichi Life Vietnam has officially opened a new transaction office at Gilimex Building 24C Phan Dang Luu St, Binh Thanh Dist, marking its third office in HCM City and 54th one in the country. Takashi Fujii CEO of Dai-ichi Life Vietnam stated “New office in HCM City can be considered to be the business centre of Dai-ichi Life Vietnam”.

AIA Vietnam recently expanded business by starting the model customer care centre in Binh Dinh province and a general agent in Ha Tinh central province. The move is in the insurer’s network expansion strategy.
Prudential Vietnam opened an office and agent at No 36 Au Co, Tan Binh St, HCM City.

Non-life insurance companies also have the very fierce competitive moves. ACE nonlife insurer joined hands with De Nhat Phan Khang Co to launch the direct insurance products to customers. The partnership marked one of new strategies of ACE to create a more directly mutual models aiming at individual customers in Vietnam.

Similarly, Fubon Vietnam revealed that it will boost the service development for other groups of customers along with Taiwanese parties. Its principal insurance turnover is expected to reach 71.4 billion dong in 2010, a year-on-year increase of 98 percent.

“Insurance companies in the next time need to continue developing resources because the competitive level of 2010 will be much fiercer,” said an official from the Insurance Management and Supervision Department warned.

Dau tu chung khoan

Tags: Vietnam insurance, Vietnam insurance industry, Vietnam insurance market