Bao Viet in an ambitious mood

According to the group’s chief operation officer Hoang Viet Ha, this year Bao Viet Holdings would scale-up cooperation with its strategic partner, particularly in life insurance, and strive to tap broader market opportunities.

Accordingly, since becoming Bao Viet Holdings’ strategic partner in late 2012, Japan-based Sumitomo Life Insurance outlined explicit cooperation programmes between both sides for 2013.

Particularly, Sumitomo Life Insurance is committed to supporting Bao Viet Holdings in development of distribution channel, development of information technology system, promoting products and quality control.

“We are now busy working on the technical support and capacity transfer minutes and will further discus concrete action programmes in the upcoming time,” said Sumitomo Life Insurance representative in Vietnam.

Ministry of Finance (MoF) Insurance Supervisory Authority statistics show that by the end of 2012, UK-based Prudential Life Insurance was the top life insurer in the Vietnamese market, holding 36 per cent of total premium income and Bao Viet Life Insurance second with 27.5 per cent.

However, in respect to new premium income Bao Viet held 25.22 per cent of the market share, whereas Prudential was lower at 25.12 per cent.

This outcome came as Bao Viet made great endeavours in acquiring new policies.

Between January-February 2013, Bao Viet Life Insurance’s revenue jumped 20 per cent, also market record.
Besides, albeit it was not the leader in total premium income in 2012, Bao Viet Life Insurance took the lead in key products.
“With new factors from this year, we expect to secure the number one position in a not distant future,” said Bao Viet Life Insurance deputy general director Nguyen Quang Tam.

There are 15 businesses operating in Vietnam’s life insurance market at present, the latest was PVI Sun Life which was licenced in early 2013.
The market features tough competition between top players Bao Viet and Prudential, which secured two-thirds of Vietnam’s life insurance market share in many years in succession.

The Insurance Supervisory Authority figures also reflect over one million new life insurance policies were secured in 2012, surging 12.5 per cent on-year, generating revenue of VND5.339 trillion ($254 million), up 15.8 per cent.
New policy premium averaged VND5.3 million ($250), up 3 per cent against 2011.
Last year saw the roll-out of 32 new product lines in life insurance.

In 2012, Bao Viet Holdings reported audited consolidated pretax profit of VND1.862 trillion ($88 million), jumping 22.4 per cent on-year and its total consolidated revenue surged 7.6 per cent on-year to VND16 trillion ($762 million).