Despite global economic crisis, the insurance market continues to post a rapid growth in ASEAN countries and new emerging economies.

This was stated at the 16th ASEAN Insurance Regulators’ Meeting (AIRM 16) and the 39 th ASEAN Insurance Council Meeting (AIC 39) which were held earlier this month in Da Nang city.

Delegates at the AIRM 16

Insurance managers discussed issues over management capacities, legal environment improvement, supervision and early warning systems for insurance in the region.

According to a report about the growth of insurance market in the ASEAN, the insurance revenue has strongly rocketed.

The 2012 insurance revenue in ASEAN rose up to 17.6 percent with 71.7 billion USD.

Singapore topped with insurance premium of 21.8 billion USD, Thailand with 16.85 billion USD, and Indonesia with 13.34 billion USD, respectively.

In 2012, there were 609 insurance agents in ASEAN, in which non – life insurance accounted for 61 percent, the largest share in the insurance market. Life insurance, reinsurance, and general insurance made up 26 percent, 7 percent and 5 percent of the market respectively.

In ASEAN region, domestic insurance companies held 58.6 percent, while foreign- managed and 100 percent foreign capital ones accounted for 23.7 percent and 17.6 percent each.

The insurance industry set up 1,404,019 new agents in 2012, a strong increase compared to the previous year, especially in Indonesia . The insurance’s total assets soared 15.3 percent, from 312.7 billion USD in 2011 to 160.6 billion USD in 2012.

On enhancing capacity of supervision and management roles, an ADB representative noted that limited supervisory capacity, incomplete legal framework of many countries and different insurance rule application among countries need to be fixed to narrow the gap among ASEAN countries.

Vietnam ’s insurance market was set up in 1993 when government allowed opening insurance businesses. Since then, Vietnam ’s insurance market has achieved remarkable development, especially over the last 10 years.

Types of insurance include life insurance, non-life insurance and insurance intermediaries. Insurance products are various in which life and health insurances have earned highest revenue growth of 20- 25 percent per year.

The legal framework for insurance practices has been fully developed.

However, Vietnam ’s insurance market is till a fledging market in comparison with some other countries in the region in terms of both business-scale and diversified products.

According to Minister of Finance Dinh Tien Dung, Vietnam will open up its insurance market for all- both local and international insurance companies meanwhile restructuring the current local insurance companies to improve their service quality, financial capacities and especially their risk management.

(Source: VNA)