Great Eastern’s recipe for success
Customer-centric approach helps drive insurer’s growth
KUALA LUMPUR: Great Eastern Life Assurance (M) Bhd, which turns 100 Tuesday, attributes its successful trail and continuous growth to its customer-centric approach, agency and staff development, strong financial standing and reputable brand name.
Chief executive officer Koh Yaw Hui said it had always been the philosophy of the company - since its inception in 1908 - to focus on customer needs and to be the country’s preferred insurer.
“We have the responsibility to ensure the products and services the company rolls out meet the future needs of our policyholders as we regard them as our important stakeholders.
“Moving forward, Great Eastern will continue with its need-based policy to ensure policyholders get the right products to meet their growing needs,’’ he told StarBiz.
Kow Yaw Hui
Great Eastern started operations on Aug 26, 1908 in Singapore, with branch offices in Kuala Lumpur and Ipoh. In 1999, Great Eastern was locally incorporated and licensed by Bank Negara to carry out life and general insurance businesses.
With more than 17,000 agents and 1.9 million policyholders, it currently has the largest agency force in the country.
According to Koh. the agency was still the largest contributor to the company’s business as more than 80% of its total business came from this distribution channel.
To this end, Great Eastern had invested substantially in information technology (IT) and comprehensive training programmes to ascertain the agency force was efficient and productive.
For staff development, it had embarked on various programmes, among others, the US-based Life Office Management Association (LOMA) examinations and actuarial studies.
By offering these programmes, Koh said it was the company’s intention to ensure its staff were enhanced and grew together with the company in terms of knowledge, well-being as well as financially.
Founded in 1924, LOMA is one of the most recognised and respected professional education institutions in the world.
More than 1,200 insurance and financial services companies from over 80 countries are engaged in research and educational activities to improve company operations through this international association.
Koh said Great Eastern had embarked on this programme for more than 20 years by offering the full spectrum of subjects, ranging from life and health insurance, operations and administration, IT skills, customer service, finance and accounting to annuities, underwriting, solvency, agency administration, human resources and others.
For its actuarial programme, the company to date has five qualified actuaries and many others are at various stages of completing the course. At present, Great Eastern has more than 1,500 staff nationwide.
It has more than RM33bil in assets and 22.5% market share (in terms of asset size), making it the number one insurer in Malaysia in asset size.
Total new business premiums until July stood at about RM600mil and it was on track to achieve its target of RM1bil by year-end.
The company has bagged several awards this year, including the BrandLaureate Heritage Brand Award 2008, Reader’s Digest Trusted Brand Gold Award 2008 and Responsible Entrepreneurship Award 2008. This has reinforced and boosted its pledge to deliver its long-term promise of providing customers with financial security.
The BrandLaureate award, also known as the Grammy awards for branding, honours brands that has survived the test of time, maintained their distinction and quality, stayed relevant through innovative means and are iconic brands in their own rights.
Great Eastern had won the Reader’s Digest award for the fifth consecutive year, this time it scored well above its competitors.
The company received the award for highest ratings from consumers on five key attributes - quality, value, trustworthiness, strong image and understanding of customer needs.
The Responsible Entrepreneurship Award was accorded for the company’s corporate social responsibility initiatives. This included educational scholarships (worth more than RM3mil to date) and to charities under its ChildrenCare project, which it had disbursed over RM1.1mil to date.
