PETALING JAYA: Allianz Malaysia Bhd says it will need to manoeuvre its business around pandemic challenges to stay resilient and brace for challenges ahead as the insurer expects Covid-19 to continue to be in the backdrop in 2022.
Chief executive officer Sean Wang (pic) said while business will continue to be very challenging in the months ahead, the company is well-equipped to embrace these challenges and will continue to monitor market and customer sentiments to offer appropriate, relevant and meaningful products to its policyholders.
Commenting on the recent unprecedented floods in the country, Wang said it was necessary for insurers to focus on education and awareness among customers to quell the notion that customers were underserved when the real issue was that customers were underinsured.
“To give you an example, during the height of the floods in December last year, our Allianz Road Rangers received requests from 1,393 customers (as of Dec 29) whose vehicles were affected by the floods, but of this number, only 68 had special peril cover.
“The cover is readily available at a very affordable price of just 0.2% of the vehicle’s agreed/insured value. Yet, many customers still choose not to buy, and this is what we aim to go out there and tell our customers,” he told Bernama.
“It is similar to a product called Allianz KampungKu which we launched in 2014. This is a very affordable insurance plan, at an annual premium of RM75 offering protection for kampung houses or household contents against fire, flood, and windstorm risks. The take-up for this product can be much better,” he said.
Recent media reports said statistics from the Statistics Department showed that the country is estimated to have suffered nearly RM6.5bil of losses in the recent floods with damages worth between RM1.2bil and RM1.4bil to homes and between RM1bil and RM1.3bil for vehicles.
Persatuan Insurans Am Malaysia said the general insurance industry was potentially facing upwards of between RM2bil and RM3bil in total flood-related claims.
“When a pandemic strikes, trends in how people purchase insurance become much more evident, and even with recovery, customer confidence in spending will take time to return,” he continued.
“Nevertheless, as more people become fully vaccinated and with anticipated economic recovery and more showrooms open, we hope that car insurance, which is a major component of general insurance, will witness a rise in demand.”
The Malaysian Automotive Association is expecting a rebound in car sales in 2022 with 600,000 auto sales, coming mainly from passenger vehicles. This is an increase of 17.9% from 2021.
Moving forward, Wang said Allianz Malaysia will also continue to invest in digitalising its business operations as part of its strategy moving into 2022. Amid lingering Covid-19 uncertainties, the company will focus on expanding, among others, its customer engagement capabilities via artificial intelligence.
Allianz Malaysia held a series of virtual training sessions for its agents last year on topics such as the use of social media and digital marketing to help them develop new customer engagement skills and capabilities.