Workforce remains a headache for the insurance sector, majorly due to the lack of tools to support insurance advisors.
Hanoi (VNA) - The biggest challenges facing insurance advisors lie with doubts of clients and the long time to complete contracts.
Barriers to insurance consulting services
The insurance industry has been seen as a sector with “hot growth” over the past years. According to Vietnam Report 2019, the industry grew 20 percent last year and is still on the rise.
Experts said the expansion of the middle class has led to the increasing demand for heath and asset insurance. However, there still remain challenges to insurance advisors and the rate of jobs layoffs is high in the sector.
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The biggest challenges facing insurance advisors lie with doubts of clients and the long time to compete contracts. Problems often emerge right after consultation when advisors have failed to offer the most suitable products to clients and explained their benefits when joining.
The complicated procedures, ambiguous information and long compensation time have increased doubts among clients about the prestige of insurance firms and products.
Another problem is the pressure of technologies as the application of AI or Bigdata in insurance services has caused issues regarding the security of client information. UP to 53.8 percent of Insurtech firms said technological application would help to speed up transactions while ensuring information security.
Technology – key to insurance services
Leading insurance firms have acknowledged that human resources can not decide all as high-quality workforce still needs a “golden key” that enables good insurance workers to reap outstanding achievements.
VietinBank Insurance (VBI) aims to take a pioneer role in technological application. To that end, it has focused on Insurtech through Bigdata to create smart products and manage data.
Through VBI4Sales, VBI retail agents and channels can provide products for clients anywhere and anytime only by phones.
N.T.T in Hanoi’s Tay Ho district, who worked as an insurance advisor for four years, said the job requires both soft skills and support tools, along with the prestige and professionality of insurance agents.
With VIB4Sales, it takes only five minutes to draft an insurance contract, she said, adding that all of relevant information will be handled through the software.
The insurance industry aims to maintain a high growth rate of 18.42 percent this year, gaining revenue of 188.73 trillion VND (8.1 billion USD), according to the Ministry of Finance’s Insurance Supervisory Authority (ISA).
Besides the high growth in revenue, insurers have also set to increase their total assets by 13.3 percent against last year to 514.80 trillion VND in 2020, while reinvesting into the economy 433.06 trillion VND, up 15.1 percent against last year.
To meet the targets, Pham Thu Phuong, Deputy Director of ISA, said the authority would continue to improve mechanisms and policies, focusing on restructuring to make the insurance market develop transparently, safely and efficiently as well as in line with international standards.
Phuong reported that the insurance market retained high revenue of 160.18 trillion VND in 2019, up 20.54 percent against the previous year.
Of this total, the revenue from non-life insurance premiums was nearly 52.39 trillion VND and life insurance premiums was 107.79 trillion VND.
According to experts, the fast-growing domestic insurance market should keep thriving thanks to rising living standards and a high gross domestic product (GDP) growth of more than 6 percent annually over the next three years.
The growth potential is great as the country has one of the world’s lowest life insurance penetration levels at less than 1 percent of GDP. The average insurance premium in Vietnam stands at 30 USD, much lower than the global average of 595 USD and Southeast Asia’s average of 74 USD.
ISA reported that the country has 66 insurance companies, which provide more than 850 non-life insurance products and 450 life insurance products./.
