Astra Life to boost sales

JAKARTA (JP): Joint venture PT Astra CMG Life (AL) is to recruit up to 1,000 new sales agents in a bid to take a bigger share of the country's life insurance market.

Company president Steve Heald said on Saturday an aggressive marketing strategy, including fielding a significant number of sales agents, was needed to benefit from the country's growing life insurance market.

He estimated that the annual growth in the domestic life insurance industry, now between 15 percent and 20 percent, will continue to grow in the coming years in line with improvement in the public's awareness of the importance of the life insurance.

Steve also said that only 3 percent of the Indonesian population was life insurance. He expects it will increase to 10 percent in five years to 10 years' time.

AL, which was established in 1993, is a joint venture between PT Astra International Group and the Colonial Group of Australia.

The company booked a premium revenue of Rp 65 billion last year. Its total asset increased 72 percent in 1998 to Rp 167 billion.

The company has five branch offices in Jakarta and between one and two in 11 other cities, including Bandung, Surabaya, Medan, Palembang and Banjarmasin. (02)