PRUDENTIAL EYES 10% OF INDONESIA'S POPULATION AS ITS CUSTOMERS

Jakarta. Prudential, one of the world’s leading financial services group based in London, sets an ambitious goal to increase its customers base by more than ten times in Indonesia to get about a tenth of the population.

Prudential has about 2.3 million individuals, having grown its customer base by 24 percent annually in the last three years. Indonesia is home to 250 million people, with annual population growth rate at 1.49 percent, according to data from the Central Statistics Agency (BPS).

“Our ambition is that we should have 10 percent of the Indonesian population,” Prudential group chief executive Tidjane Thiam said in an exclusive interview with the Jakarta Globe on Monday.

Thiam, who is based in London, compares Indonesia with the United Kingdom, where Prudential has 7 million customers, out of a population of about 60 million. Thiam, though, did not set a deadline for the target in Indonesia.

“It’s not going to happen in a short time, but that’s the ambition we have,” said Thiam, who was appointed to his current position in October 2009, a promotion from his previous position as the chief financial officer he held from March 2008.

Prudential as a group operates in Indonesia through its Prudential Life Assurance (Prudential Indonesia). It provide life insurance, life insurance-linked investment and life insurance-linked health insurance products for customers. Prudential Indonesia employs 220,000 insurance agents.

Prudential Indonesia booked a 6.4 percent year-on-year rise in total premiums by value to Rp 12.6 trillion ($1.1 billion) in the first half of this year, thanks to a rise in its customer based and product diversification.

Thiam said prospects to grow Prudential’s business in Indonesia remains wide open. He said Indonesia has a low ratio of life insurance premium to gross domestic product, at 1.6 percent, compared to Asian rivals, like 3 percent to 4 percent in Malaysia and about 9 percent in Hong Kong.

He also added there is still huge gap as to what an individual must pay to cover their risks, saying that Indonesian out-of-pocket expenses is about half the cost compared to about a tenth in developed countries.

“Protection gap is what percentage of the cost they have to pay in cash out of a customer’s pocket, that’s a protection gap,” said Thiam.

“If you get sick in the UK, you pay 9 percent of the total cost, in the USA, you pay about 11 percent. In Indonesia it is about 50 percent . This is what we are trying to address. We can protect people, allow them to reduce the cost for illness with affordable products,” he said.

Thiam spent the first part of his professional career with McKinsey & Company in Paris and New York, serving insurance companies and banks. He believes that demand for life insurance products will continue to rise in Southeast Asia’s largest economy, partly due to its relatively young population and higher per capita income.

Prudential, which is incorporated in England, has 457 billion pounds ($744 billion) in assets under management as of June 30. In Indonesia, it manages about Rp 40 trillion worth of assets and invests in Indonesia’s capital market sector.

Sumber : http://thejakartaglobe.beritasatu.com/business/prudential-eyes-10-indonesia-population-customers/