Allianz Ayudhya Assurance Plc has set its first-year premium target for the agent channel at 2 billion baht, and aims to drive up life and health protection products to 45% of the first-year premium.
The 2-billion-baht target would be 15% year-on-year growth, said chief agency officer Virong Patanakumjorn.
The company targets total insurance premiums worth 34 billion baht this year, including first-year premiums of 6.5 billion from all distribution channels.
Mr Virong said growth is to come from the company's plan to create digital agents through three main strategies -- professional agents, digital agents, and health and wealth protection products.
"The health and wealth protection segment has grown from 28% of premiums in 2014 to 38% in 2016 and 41% at the end of last year. This points towards growing demand for these products," he said.
The company's total premiums ranked third in the insurance industry in the first quarter. But in terms of the ratio of health and wealth premiums, the company ranked first as health products contribute 27.4% of first-year premiums.
Despite a slowdown in the insurance market, Allianz Ayudhya registered first-year premiums of 420 billion baht in the first three months, up 20% year-on-year, mainly attributed to its digital agent channel. Agents are encouraged to use digital tools to increase work efficiency, said Mr Virong.
He said the utilisation rate of the Allianz Discover application has increased significantly, with around 7,000 downloads. The app has an automatic warranty consideration system, which can approve insurance policies at the point of sale and reduce approval time to 5-15 minutes, down from three business days.
The company also launched the "Social Media for Sales" platform to help agents to keep in touch with customers and recruit new sales agents.
There are 1,375 agents that have joined this platform, up from 22 agents logged in 2014 when it was still a pilot project.
