Bangkok--Feb 5--Siam Commercial New York Life Insurance
Siam Commercial New York Life Insurance Public Company Limited (SCNYL) today announced that they expect their total new business sales to increase by more than 50 per cent during the year 2003. The company also said that it was very pleased with the results of their highly successful New York Life "GOLD" agent training program, which has been a key factor in improving individual agent productivity. They also stated that they expect Bancassurance to become a major distribution channel in the near future as they take advantage of the synergies between the company and Siam Commercial Bank.
"2002 was an outstanding year for Siam Commercial New York Life', said President and CEO C. Donald Carden. "The company's new business performance exceeded Baht 751 million, representing an increase of 50 per cent over last year's results. Total premium increased to Baht 1,411 million, marking the first time in history we have exceeded one billion Baht in total sales revenue".
Highlights of the company's new business sales performance from all distribution channels include:
- Individual Life sales were up by more than 75%,
- Civil Service Insurance sales were up by 42%
- Corporate Insurance sales were 25% higher
- Bancassurance and Affinity Marketing sales were up by more than 10 times the previous year.
"For Individual Life Insurance, it was a record performance," Mr. Carden continued. "We experienced a 37% increase in the number of active agents and a 33% increase in the amount of premium sold per agent. These increases are a direct result of the quality of agents now being hired". Siam Commercial New York Life now has a direct sales force of 1,500 agents in their Individual Life distribution channel.
The launching of the Career Agency Division in the middle of 2002 was also a major success. During the last quarter of the year, Career Agency contributed 20 per cent of the overall Individual life premium. Plans are set to aggressively expand on this strategy for 2003. Siam Commercial New York Life currently have nine Career Agency Branches and plan to open an additional four by the end of the second quarter of this year.
Educational programs continue to play a critical role in the development of Siam Commercial New York Life agents. Not only do these courses teach the fundamentals of life insurance, they also assist in guiding agents in the art of becoming more professional business people.
"We are quite excited about our "Counselor Selling" classes", stated Mr. Carden. "These courses teach a unique method regarding how to help clients realize their goals and dreams through counseling methods rather through traditional channels. Of course, we will continue to develop our managers in the New York Life GOLD System so that we may recruit and train the very best agents in the industry".
Results from Bancassurance distribution were also well above expectation. The company achieved sales of Baht 70.3 million during their first year of operations. Although this distribution channel is still in the early stages of development, the company expects Bancassurance to account for sales of more than Baht 100 million for 2003.
"We expect to be a real market leader in Bancassurance distribution during 2003," Mr. Carden continued. "We plan to open a minimum of 10 branches per month during the course of the year. We will train the Siam Commercial Bank employees of our targeted branches and set up a special software system called "Power Agent" to administer this business. We expect to have more than 100 new branches join the program during 2003 and have a targeted premium of Baht 101 million".
Affinity Distribution is another new distribution channel Siam Commercial New York Life is developing. The company plans to be one of the first life insurance companies to expand and initiate sales through direct telemarketing efforts. During 2002, this distribution channel accounted for premium of Baht 5.3 million.
Unit Link policies create another possible strategy for the company. Although this product has not yet been approved for sales in the Kingdom of Thailand, it is generally believed that such products will be gain DOI approval during the latter part of the year. Once this occurs, Siam Commercial New York Life will offer such programs through both Individual Life channels and Bancassurance, using Siam Commercial Bank Asset Management Company as the fund managing resource.
The company's Marketing Strategy will aim toward creating new products and services through all six different distribution channels. The company believes that all new products must differentiate SCNYL from other life insurance companies that would give their clients extra benefits than sold in the market today.
"All of our products are developed through agent driven product committees", stated Khun Kenny Jiamanukoonkit. "Each committee represents the sales force of the specific market they sell. In this way, our products are created to serve these specific markets based on the needs of those niche clients".
For more information, please call
Khun Wandee, Khun Taweesak, Public Relations Department
Tel 0-2655-3000 ext 3804-5 Fax 0-2256-1517
E-mail :
[email protected],
[email protected]
WWW.scnyl.com End.
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