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INSURANCE
Thai Life Insurance, the country's second-largest life insurer, said it produced healthy premiums in the first half, as a slow economy reinforced the importance of savings for Thai consumers.
According to Apirak Thaipatanagul, a director and CEO of Thai Life, the company wrote 14.30 billion baht in premiums for the January-June period, up about 1% over the same period last year.
In terms of new business, the company reported 3.378 billion baht in first-year premiums including single premiums, down 20% from the same period last year.
Single premiums for the period totalled 732 million baht, down 65%.
However, the company said it would see an increase of 10% in first-year premiums to 2.705 billion baht if only 10% of single premiums were included, which was the general practice for the life insurance industry.
Thai Life expects total premiums at the end of this year to grow 2% to 29 billion baht from about 28.5 billion a year earlier, with first-year premiums growing about 30% to 6.5 billion baht.
Last year, Thai Life reported a 90% rise in new business to 9.6 billion baht, largely boosted by a substantial increase in single premiums.
According to Mr Apirak, the life insurance industry as a whole experienced continuous growth in the first half of the year, as Thais had become more risk-averse.
In the meantime, return rates offered by life insurance policies are still competitive and higher than the interest rates provided by commercial banks.
Most life insurers offer a guaranteed dividend at about 4-5% a year.
Mr Apirak said sales growth was also stimulated by new products designed particularly for low-income earners, and investment-linked SET50 policies.
For the first half, the company relaunched the SET50, a single-premium policy that provides life protection for five years with dividend payments based on the performance of the SET50 index.
The investment-linked product guarantees the investor's principal but offers high returns.
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