Bangkok--17 Mar--Aziam Burson-Marsteller
ING Life Limited today announced the appointment of its new permanent President and CEO, Mr. Ignacio Aguilar, who will replace Acting Co-CEOs Poolap Penkitti and Andrew Shaw, and introduced its new management line-up. Mr. Aguilar provided an update on the 2010 results for ING Insurance Asia/Pacific as well as his strategy for the Company and his impressions of the Thai insurance market, while Khun Poolap and Mr. Shaw, presented the 2010 results for ING Life Thailand.
As President and CEO, Mr. Aguilar will be responsible for overseeing the entire ING Life Limited operation and for determining the strategy to grow the Company’s business in the years ahead. He will also work with the local management team to ensure that all three major sales channels; Tied Agency, Bancassurance and Direct are aligned with the overall strategy and focused on achieving their targets.
Mr. Aguilar opened the event with a presentation on ING Group and Insurance Asia/Pacific’s performance in 2010 and its continued commitment to growing its presence in the Thai market. He revealed that the Annualized Premium Equivalents (APEs) in Insurance Asia/Pacific increased by 35% over 2009 and grew by a very strong 43.6% to EUR 316 million from EUR 220 million in Q4 2009. This result was in part driven by very strong performance by ING’s preferred banking partners in Thailand, Malaysia, Korea, and China.
“ING is a strong and dynamic global financial services provider and our insurance business continues to expand in key markets around the world,” said Ignacio Aguilar, President and CEO, ING Life Limited. “In Thailand, we have a strong foundation on which to build a truly world—class insurance business that is sustainable for the long-term. The Thai insurance market is very dynamic and is growing rapidly and ING Group is committed to supporting ING Life Limited as it continues to expand its operation in order to take advantage of this opportunity while offering Thai consumers the finest insurance products on the market.”
While ING Life Limited in Thailand saw aggregate growth in 2010, it faced challenges in achieving the growth targets for its Tied Agency (TA) and Direct Insurance (DI) channels due to a combination of management restructuring and a changing regulatory environment respectively. On the other hand, ING Life Limited’s Bancassurance (BA) channel has performed very well throughout the year based in large part on the strength of its relationship with its preferred banking partner, TMB. At the outset of 2011, the issues that faced the TA and DI channels have been resolved and the company is focusing on growing its customer and premium base across all major sales channels.
With the umbrella theme of “Professionalism — Discipline - Performance”, ING Life Limited, under its new CEO Ignacio Aguilar, is rolling out growth strategies for each of its 3 key sales channels and is confident that all the 3 major sales channels can achieve their performance targets this year.
“I am very pleased to be returning to Thailand as the President and CEO of ING Life Limited, and I believe that this great organization has the potential to be a market leader based on the strength of its highly professional management and staff, its robust existing business, its outstanding product portfolio and the wonderful support it receives from ING Group. It is no secret that we struggled last year, but many of the factors that caused our difficulties have been resolved and this year we can focus on growing our business in Thailand’s highly competitive insurance market.”
“For Bancassurance, we have announced a First Year Premium (FYP) target of 1.7 billion baht, which represents a growth of 42% over 2010. We will seek to achieve this through a combination of enhancing the support that ING Life Limited provides to TMB in terms of staff training and the launch of a new generation of non-participating products specifically for the BA channel.”
ING Life Limited’s Tied Agency channel is ranked number eight in the market and is made up of over 5,000 agents, agency leaders and SVPs. This important sales channel generated 5,439 million baht in total premiums for 2010.
“Tied Agency is, and will continue to be, a key sales channel for ING Life Limited and this year we will be seeking to transform our agency through a range initiatives designed to support our agents and increase our FYP growth rate. Our FYP target for TA in 2011 is 1 billion baht, which represents a 12% increase over 2010. In order to achieve this target, we will be intensely focusing on quality in every aspect of our operation, including the agents we recruit, the training and development opportunities we provide, the products we offer and ultimately the advice and service we give to our clients. ING Life Limited’s agents will set the standard for professionalism and expertise in the Thai market.”
ING Life Limited plans to issue a range of new products in support of its agency channel including both participating and protection insurance products.
“2011 will be a very exciting year for ING Life Limited due to our clear focus on “Professionalism — Discipline - Performance” and strong commitment to take this business to the next level of growth and success. We have the plans and resources in place to ensure that each of our three key sales channels contributes to our overall success and achieves its full potential. I am very much looking forward to working with this team of great people in making our plans a reality in this market,” concluded Mr. Aguilar.
Mr. Aguilar has significant experience in the insurance business gained in Latin America and Asia, including Thailand. He started his career in his native Argentina, working for HSBC — New York Life, where he held a number of management posts including strategic planning, marketing and bancassurance.
In 2003, he was responsible for launching and then managing Siam Commercial New York Life’s highly successful Bancassurance business with Siam Commercial Bank and he continued to oversee that business in Thailand until 2006 when he joined ING’s regional office, where he started his career in ING as Head of Regional Bancassurance before promotion to Head of Regional Commerce. In this role, he had overall responsibility for driving ING Insurance Asia/Pacific’s business growth across Asia.
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Aziam Burson-Marsteller Tel. 0 2252 9871
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