Bangkok Life Assurance (BLA) aims to revise its channels' distribution by trimming bancassurance to 40% and raising agents, direct marketing and digital to 60% by 2021 after AIA entered the bancassurance segment by selling at Bangkok Bank (BBL) branches.
The insurer wants to increase the contribution of the agent channel to 40% and direct marketing and internet to 20% by 2021, said BLA chief executive Jiraseth Sukhasvasti, a former chief operating officer of AIA.
As of June, bancassurance contributed 71% to BLA's premiums, followed by the agent channel at 21% and other channels (direct marketing and digital) at 8%.
BLA has long sold products through BBL, while AIA late last year entered a 15-year bancassurance agreement with the bank, a move enabling the bank's branches to offer AIA life insurance products.
In the first half, BLA's agent and direct marketing channels grew 5% and 18% year-on-year, respectively, while the industry's agent and direct marketing channels fell 3% and 24%, respectively.
But BLA's bancassurance channel growth -- 9% year-on-year for the six months through June -- is lower than the industry's 13% after the partner bank added another insurance partner.
The company's other channels expanded 11% over the same period, below the industry's 46%.
ML Jiraseth said the company also plans to increase the contribution of protection products to 30% or above from 20% at present, while savings products are planned to be reduced to around 70% from 80%.
To achieve the goals, the company will focus on creating good customer experiences with various products to serve people of all ages, he said, noting that the product can help customers' integrated financial planning, as well as create a digital platform to manage relationships with customers.
"We have around 1,300 agents that have investment consultant [IC] licences, so-called financial adviser [FA]," ML Jiraseth said. "This is one of our strong points as FA agents provide 44% of insurance premiums in 2017, up from 37% in the previous year. Today, the company ranks the seventh, but we aim to lead in brand awareness."
Chief financial officer Sanor Thampipattanakul said BLA will revise this year's target in October and arrange next year's plan.
At the start of this year, the company announced a target to increase first-year premiums by 10% (excluding short-term savings products).