Health protection premiums surged 30% year-on-year at Muang Thai Life Assurance (MTL) in the first four months of 2020, bucking the trend of the company's gross written, renewal and new premiums, which fell across the board in the same period.
The pandemic, the stuttering economy and rock-bottom interest rates have taken a toll on the company's gross written, renewal and new premiums.
In response, MTL has shifted focus to health insurance products, even though their combined premiums are 10 times smaller than those of savings products, said president and chief executive Sara Lamsam.
For the January-to-April period, total premiums received and first-year premiums dropped by 19% each from a year earlier to 22.4 billion and 5.87 billion baht. Renewal insurance premiums fell 20% to 16.5 billion baht.
Consumers have become more health-conscious in the wake of the coronavirus outbreak, Mr Sara said.
To cash in on growing demand in health protection products, MTL has launched a new lump-sum product, D Health, which is a rider covering the principal of protection starting from 1 million baht to 5 million baht.
D Health features deductibles, which require insured persons to pay a fixed amount of treatment costs in return for paying lower premiums.
"The product is a solution for customers who want to have health protection with affordable premiums," Mr Sara said.
He said the company has multiple distribution channels, including agents, bancassurance, brokers and online.
MTL is also developing a new digital platform, MTL Click, as a one-stop service to keep up with customers' changing health habits.
The company is also joining with Samitivej Hospital to enable health policy holders to seek advice from 400 physicians who specialise in various fields, including dermatology, cardiology, endocrinology and obstetrics-gynaecology.