Local industrial machine set to run out of steam in Q2

Lam Hai Tuan

ACE Life Insurance Company Limited (ACE Life) leads Vietnam’s life insurance market in terms of total sums assured in 2010 and has the highest average sum assured per policy, according to the Ministry of Finance (MoF). Lam Hai Tuan, country president of ACE Life Vietnam, talks with VIR’s Minh Thien about his plan to keep ACE Life Vietnam a market leader.

What are your comments on ACE Life’s market position according to the MoF?

Sums assured is a pre-defined benefit that the insurer pays to the beneficiary of an insurance policy in case the insured event takes place. In the world, reputable life insurers are measured by its total sum assured rather than its turnover because total sum assured is the key indicator of the level of trust policyholders place in an insurer.

According to the 2010 insurance performance report from the MoF, ACE Life currently leads the Vietnam life insurance market in terms of the 2010 total sum assured and average sum assured per policy. The report also stated that ACE Life is in second position in terms of the total sums assured of all existing policies although ACE Life has only been in operation for five years. We are very proud of these achievements because it is strong evidence that ACE Life has been developing very strongly in the past five years to become the most prestigious life insurer in the market.

Also according to the report, ACE Life is ranked the second largest foreign-invested life insurer in terms of first year premiums, while its sales force accounts for only 5 per cent of the whole life market. What is your strategy to build such a high performance workforce?

Over the course of 2010, our production reached VND731 billion equivalent to 150 per cent of 2009. This result has propelled ACE Life to the second largest foreign-invested life insurer in terms of first year premiums in the market and that our sales force is 2.5 times more effective than the average productivity level in the life insurance market.

In ACE Life, we determine to promote the image of insurance agents to be professional financial consultants who can help policyholders to develop own financial plan with our products. We recruit only qualified agents without sacrificing quality for quantity, we train and develop them to be able undertake the role of professional consultants who can help people choose the right insurance product which meet their financial protection needs. We also create opportunities for agents to develop their career with ACE Life with our internal development policy.

In fact, for more than two years, we have no longer recruited agency management positions from other life insurers and we are proud that 100 per cent of our current agency management team is developed internally. This enables us to retain qualified people, helps to maintain a stable work force not only for ACE Life but for life insurance as a whole.

How can you improve ACE Life to adapt to people tightening their expenditure for insurance?

I recognise that the financial crisis or inflation is the challenge that life insurers have to deal with. But the challenges also provide some good opportunities for those who are well prepared to quickly adapt to the new situation. During the past five years of our operations in Vietnam, we have experienced some good as well as not so good economic situations. ACE Life, however, has maintained its strong and stable development momentum through all these years. We believe that good products and services are key factors to maintain the business growth in difficult times. Our Family Universal Life products, for instance, provide policyholders flexible premium payment schedule and the ability to increase or reduce face amount according to the changing of their protection needs etc.

These special built-in features of the products enable policyholders to retain the policy during a certain period of difficult time. This is the reason why the products have enjoyed very strong growth over the past few years despite the fluctuation of the financial environment. In the world, ACE group is also doing very well. In 2010, ACE’s core operating insurance companies were rated AA- by Standard & Poors and A+ by A.M. Best. This means our group companies not only sustained the financial crisis but were able to grow even stronger.

How will ACE Life develop in the future?

My mission is to develop a very strong and successful life insurance company in the country. Even though our business performance is great so far, we are still working on it. My tenure in Vietnam is long enough to enable me to work with our team here to realise this mission.

We have been the pioneer in terms of innovative products and applying the best quality assurance service to our policyholders, we will continue to build on those achievements to provide even better products and services to our customers. We want to be the number one life insurer of choice to all Vietnamese.