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By DALJIT DHESI-The Star Malaysia

It cites transformation strategies for the jump in third quarter

PETALING JAYA: Prudential Assurance Malaysia Bhd (Prudential Malaysia) has attributed its double-digit growth in new business premiums in the third quarter to the success of its “transformation” strategies.

The insurer registered a 33% growth in new business premiums to RM181mil for the third quarter ended September 2008 compared with the previous corresponding period.

Total new business premiums for the first nine months were RM451mil, up 20% from a year earlier.

Prudential Malaysia was the top insurer in terms of new business sales for the first half of 2008, with 13% growth and 21% market share, according to chief executive officer Bill Lisle.

Lisle said the insurer’s strategies for transformation focused on a number of key areas, such as adding wealth planning services, and leveraging on technology and branding initiatives.

Bill Lisle

“Transforming our agency force to wealth planners is a huge step for us as it will allow the company to have our internal equivalent of financial advisors, who will be able to provide a wide range of financial products such as life insurance, unit trust, takaful, general insurance, health and retirement solutions.

“This will make our wealth planners a complete one-stop financial solutions provider,’’ he told StarBiz in an e-mail reply.

Prudential Malaysia currently has a total agency strength of over 9,000.

Leveraging on technology was another key move. In July, the company launched PRUway, a point-of-sales system which has revolutionised the way the company does business and build relationships with customers.

The system has enabled its 1,030-plus wealth planners to transact business anytime, anywhere, using high-tech laptops and digital signature capture software.

Using the system, sales personnel can now perform presentations and submit proposals online to the head office for immediate processing, thus reducing turnaround time drastically and boosting efficiency.

Prudential Malaysia’s aggressive branding has also driven growth, especially its ‘The Face You Can Trust’ campaign, which was launched in early June.

“The campaign was not only well received by our customers, but also by our agents who told us in an internal survey conducted recently that it had contributed to their sales,” Lisle said.