Canadian insurer Sun Life Financial plans to increase its roster of agents in Hong Kong and use the city as a launch pad to expand into other Asian markets to capture growing opportunities in the region, according to its Asia head.
“We are based in Hong Kong, which is our regional headquarters,” said Ms Ingrid Johnson, President of Sun Life Asia, in an interview. “It has served us extremely well because Hong Kong is a fantastic location from where we can travel around the region easily.”
The insurer has wholly owned operations in the Philippines, Vietnam and Singapore, as well as joint ventures in Malaysia, India and mainland China.
Sun Life’s planned expansion matches the vision of Hong Kong Chief Executive John Lee Ka-chiu, who wants more international insurers to base themselves in the city to oversee their Asia operations.
“We certainly would like to see more cross-selling of products among our customers,” Ms Johnson said. “We have over 1 million clients in Hong Kong, but less than 20% have life, health and wealth with us. So that is an opportunity.”
In April, Sun Life opened a 23,000 sq ft customer centre at The Gateway in the tourist hotspot of Tsim Sha Tsui, joining peers such as HSBC Life, Manulife, Prudential and Standard Chartered who have set up such dedicated customer centres over the past two years to tap wealthy clients.
“While we are a late entrant in creating this client space, we have raised the bar in terms of client experience,” Johnson said. “The new centre has helped boost sales.”
Sun Life said new policy sales in Hong Kong rose fourfold year-on-year in the second quarter, with mainland Chinese visitors to Hong Kong accounting for more than 20% of the total, up from 10% before the pandemic.
The strong growth in Hong Kong, alongside doubling of sales in mainland China and 39% jump in India during the second quarter contributed to a 25% increase in profit to C$150 million (US$111.9 million) for the quarter ended June in the region, while its insurance sales rose 51% to C$450 million.
The insurer’s underlying profit in Asia rose 36% over five years from C$461 million in 2017 to C$627 million last year.
Ms Johnson said Sun Life will continue to invest in agents but will focus on quality instead of quantity.
“We are investing very carefully to pursue quality agents to make sure that we do not end up getting people who just care about the money,” she said. “As such, we do not want to just expand the number of the agents, but we want to invest in facilities and technology to enhance their productivity and services to customers,” she said, reported South China Morning Post.