When it comes to property and life insurance, most people in Taiwan are familiar with auto, fire and earthquake insurance, as well as policies that cover losses from typhoon damages, caused by wind and floods, among others.
But what about pets? If dogs are "man's best friend," should insurance on dogs and other pets be considered a type of property insurance?
To the Central Insurance Co (
PHOTO: COURTESY OF CENTRAL INSURANCE CO.
Insured `properties'
Not only that, in step with its foreign counterparts, the company also began to offer celebrity insurance early this year.
Taiwanese supermodel Lin Chia-chi (
To expand its customer base, Central Insurance has further eyed the "folk customs" insurance market, given that most Taiwanese people hold traditional holidays in high regard.
For instance, the insurer cooperated with more than 50 temples during the Lunar New Year holidays in February to promote the "pacifying gods and goddesses" insurance program, or an taisui (
Then in the seventh lunar month -- the deeply inauspicious "ghost month" which fell in August this year -- the company devised one-month personal injury insurance products to compensate those who were wounded on mass transit systems, in elevators, by fires or in earthquake accidents during that period.
But the company's coverage doesn't stop there. On its creative list of coverages, Central Insurance also offers rainfall, unemployment and gas insurance policies, to name just a few.
"We're not a big company. To compete against larger rivals, we must achieve a market segmentation by offering really different products to gain the public's attention," said Fred Pai (
Privatized entity
Established in 1962 and directly owned by the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT), the insurer became an entirely privatized entity in 2002 before offloading shares to investors in stages.
In May 2003, it became a member of Polaris Financial Group (寶來集團), which is the insurer's biggest shareholder, with around a 30-percent stake.
A month later, Pai took the helm of the poorly performing company, arranged by his elder brother Wayne Pai (白文正), the chairman of Polaris Financial, who then shouldered the difficult task of restructuring the insurer and moving it into the black.
For the time being, the company has accomplished the first stage of its restructuring -- adjusting its business structures to balance developments in the various non-life insurance segments, especially raising its car insurance proportion to account for 50 percent of the company's premium revenues.
Also, aimed at strengthening its workforce, it pulled in younger sales representatives and retired the less efficient employees, Fred Pai said.
The company now employs 900 workers nationwide, up from 600.
The second-stage it will implement now is "jacking up revenues and performance" in hopes of reaping profits in the underwriting segment next year, Pai said.
"Central Insurance never made money in its core business over the past decade. The profit-earning portion used to come from investments made by premiums," Pai said.
Despite lacking a background in insurance, Pai brought in expertise in communications and implementation accumulated from his experience at Polaris Securities Co (寶來證券), and gave bonuses to stimulate employees' productivity.
"I'm devoted to my job as an insurance recruit," he said.
Pai graduated from the Hsinpu Institute of Technology (which became St. John's University), and obtained an EMBA (executive master's in business administration) degree from National Taiwan University in 2002.
"By having innovative merchandise and marketing methods and offering creative insurance policies, we aim to boost morale and the company's exposure, although these factors cannot immediately bring in massive profits," he said.
Ghost month insurance
The 20-day "ghost month" insurance policies attracted more than 8,000 customers and raked in NT$1.6 million (US$48,000). Meanwhile, the one-month an taisui insurance services pumped in over NT$10 million in premiums.
The company's market share in the non-life sector has climbed from 5.85 percent in 2003 to 6.28 percent last year, according to the company's Web site.
The company's financial statements showed NT$98 million in pre-tax profits for the first eight months of the year, or NT$0.28 per share. The company, with NT$9 billion in available funds, or working capital, has applied to raise its overseas investments from the current 10 percent to 15 percent.
Susan Chu (朱素徵), director at the Taiwan Ratings Corp (中華信評), a local affiliate of Standard & Poor's, praised the company's innovativeness and its aggressive efforts to push up revenues, describing its performance as "so far so good."
However, the company might face transitional challenges in future, as now it is shifting focus from the commercial segment -- with large enterprises such as airlines or semiconductor manufacturers as major customers -- to also emphasize a small-risk personal line, such as personal insurance or services offered to small- and medium-sized enterprises.
The credit rating agency gave it a "twAA-" long-term rating with a stable outlook. While Moody's Investors Service gave it a "Baa1" rating in November last year.
"Central Insurance did increase its market share during the past two years as it sold more personal insurance products. We will continue to keep an eye on its performance during this transitional period and expect it to become a growth seeker," she said.
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