GREAT EASTERN LIFE (VIETNAM): First Priority to Clients’ Benefits

 

Within one year in Vietnam, we have established our presence in the 2 major cities in Vietnam and intend to continue our focus in those 2 cities while carefully assessing feasibility of expanding into other urban cities within the country. During this time, we opened up 3 offices in those cities and to date, we have established an operation of more than 100 staffs and an agency distribution force of about 1,200 in those cities.

 

For the past year, Great Eastern Life (Vietnam) had achieved an average monthly new premium growth in excess of about 70%. We are encouraged by this growth; it makes us more confident in our mission of bringing great life to Vietnamese people.

 

In the past year, we have also launched a comprehensive marketing program of TV commercials, roadshows, customer events and corporate social responsibility programs, to bring our brand to the masses. We are also happy to see that there is evidence of this success as the public is increasingly aware of the brand Great Eastern.

 

The Vietnamese Government has made a lot of efforts in building and ensuring proper market conduct and professionalism which can be seen through the improvements in the legal framework of the life insurance industry to promote the development of the life insurance industry

 

It is extremely important that the authorities continue to be more progressive in continuous improvements to the regulations and policies so that the industry and business can continue to grow and provide the needed and appropriate products and distribution to the Vietnamese society. Over the past year, the authorities have paid more and more attention on supervision works in order to investigate the faults from insurance companies in order to help the industry to develop healthily. This is a step forward and needs to be continued with clearer policies going forward.

 

Vietnam is politically stable and has a stable growing economy as such with the right policies and regulations in place; it can be a more attractive investment location in the region.

 

The worst may be over for the global economy as it slowly embarks on the road to recovery and we are confident that Vietnam’s recovery is in tandem if not faster. From the report of the General Statistics, the foreign direct investment (FDI) implemented in the first eight months of 2009 reached $6.5 billion. Though the figure represents an 8.5 % decrease in comparison with the same period of 2008, it is still an encouraging result as this is a high FDI level for the last several years.

Vietnamese inflation slowed to the lowest level in more than seven years, benefiting from comparison with the peak of a surge in prices in 2008. 

According to Vietnam Insurance Association, in the first six months of year 2009, total life insurance premium revenue increased by 8.69%, compared with the same period last year, of which premium income of newly-signed policies rose by 18.43%. 

 

In addition, the Vietnam life insurance market has seen a surge in the 2^nd quarter of 2009 with 10.59% and 29.41% of total life insurance premium income and newly-signed policies of life insurance premium revenue respectively.

 

As such, it can be seen that the insurance industry has been very resilient and thus will continue to grow unabated in the coming years.

 

Frankly speaking, Vietnamese people awareness about benefits of life insurance is quite low. Currently only about more than 7 million over the huge population of 86 million owns a life insurance policy. That represents only about an average of ten % of the population participating in life insurance thus the market is still largely untapped and has great potential for growth. 

 

There is still much that can be and needs to be done in this aspect of raising public awareness of the benefits of life insurance. And this can be done through a committed and sustained collaboration between the Government and the industry players to propagate this message.

 

Currently, we focused on building our talent pool and agency distribution channel. And we are proud to say that Great Eastern applies modern management philosophies which put people in the first priority. The company’s attitude towards “workfare” is focused on top talent recruitment and development through an integrated career exchange program.

 

As a Group, with operations across Asia, we are able to share best practices and apply technological advances from our parent company into Vietnam. That way, Great Eastern will continue to forge ahead through the use of proven, leading-edge technologies to enhance various business processes to create a unique customer experience, and deliver greater value to all stakeholders.

 

Moreover, we are building our corporate culture of “Life is great”. At Great Eastern, we believe that “Life is great when we have the opportunity to help the less privileged”. With the commitment to contribute to the development of Vietnamese economy, education and society, we have also granted numerous scholarships to those in need to ensure that they do not need to worry about having a good education. We will continue and expand on our corporate social responsibility programs where we aim to provide sustainable and meaningful improvements to the various partners and institutions that we work with.