Allianz spreads its wings across Asia
Allianz spreads its wings across Asia
The insurance industry, like other financial sectors, is
facing challenging times.
Allianz has made a commitment to Asia. This year, it launched
a joint venture in the Philippines, assumed a 25 percent stake in
Brunei's largest insurer NIC and injected fresh capital into its
Indonesian life joint-venture. There is also the recent
appointment of Michael Diekmann, currently CEO of Allianz in
Asia-Pacific, to the Board of Allianz AG. "Clearly, the Allianz
Group's financial strength is a competitive advantage in these
difficult times as all clients are increasingly looking for
first-class security," Diekmann said.
Most of its infrastructure projects are going ahead, such as
the Kowloon Canton Railway in Hong Kong, Mass Rapid Transits in
Singapore and Bangkok and a 2,000 megawatt power plant in
Malaysia.
Allianz's strategy in Asia-Pacific has been based on six main
goals: Increase brand awareness; develop its position as a
leading industrial insurer; establish life and health business;
improve market penetration for personal and commercial business
lines and expand asset management activities.
It has built up a quality network mostly from scratch to
ensure there is a state-of-the-art platform for future expansion.
The encouraging parameters on which Allianz has based its
strategy are unchanged: high savings rate, growing middle class,
increasing educational needs and the need for old age provisions,
private health coverage and funding of necessary infrastructure.
Since last June, PT Asuransi Allianz Utama Indonesia has paid
Rp 12 billion from total May riot policies of about Rp 50
billion. Allianz's customer-friendly policy procedure ensured
payments were made quickly, even when the original policy was
lost.
The Allianz nonlife company, together with its Life and Health
company in Indonesia, will soon establish the Allianz Care
Foundation, with an initial fund of Rp 1 billion.
Its main activity will be to help people who are unable to pay
for health care, further proof Allianz cares about Asia.