Life insurance giants eye lucrative market

Vietnam’s life insurance market is set to see an influx of major foreign-owned life insurance players

Industry insiders revealed that two big Asia insurers Shin Kong Life and Samsung Life, which have had representative offices in Vietnam for several years, had stepped up their plans to make an official presence in Vietnam.

Meanwhile, MetLife, the largest life insurer in the United States, is preparing to establish a joint venture life insurance company in Vietnam in the fourth quarter of this year.

Late last month, the insurer and the Bank of Investment & Development of Vietnam signed a memorandum of understanding in Washington D.C., which paves the way for the two companies to form a joint venture life insurance company in Vietnam.

“Vietnam is a dynamic emerging market and one of the fastest growing life insurance markets in Asia with an expected annual growth rate of 15 per cent over the next five years. Clearly there is great potential in this market,” said Dustin Ball, vice president, and head of strategic development for Metlife in Asia.

As a dynamic emerging market in Southeast Asia, Vietnam’s favorable demographics, growing middle class, and potential future economic growth make it a very attractive market for MetLife, said Ball.

Meanwhile, last month, Research and Markets also announced the addition of the Life Insurance in Vietnam, Key Trends and Opportunities to 2016 report, which shows  that the life insurance segment is expected to expand during the forecast period, due to the country’s growing economy, increasing annual disposable income levels and the expanding middle-class population.

In addition, the majority of life insurance policies sold in Vietnam were endowment policies, which accounted for a 70.9 per cent share of the total written premium in 2011.

“Therefore, the Vietnamese life insurance segment is widely considered to be an emerging market with greater potential for further growth than the life insurance segments of other Asian countries, such as China and India,” said the report.