Asia’s market to emerge “stronger” post-pandemic: Generali’s Leonardi

October 15 2020 by

Italian insurer Generali has had a busy eighteen months in Asia.

Amid the current pandemic, Rob Leonardi, regional officer for Asia, emphasised Generali is well-positioned for virus-related impacts, given their solid past year performance. He also reiterated the Italian player’s steadfast commitment to Asia.

But the insurer may see some changes soon in partnerships in several of its regional operations.

InsuranceAsia News (IAN) had a chat with Leonardi on his post-pandemic outlook, prediction for structural shifts in the region and what’s ahead for their Asian businesses.

Leonardi first joined the company in 2017, and as regional officer, he oversees business operations across both P&C and life in the region. Prior to Generali, Leonardi was with Axa, Munich Re and UnitedHealth Group across the region. He holds over 25 years of market experience.

IAN: How have Asian insurance markets performed this year? What’s the outlook for 2021?  

Leonardi: We have all been impacted by the Covid-19 pandemic. With economic activity coming to almost a standstill in the first half of 2020, the knock-on effect to insurance demand has certainly been felt. As the pandemic is still unfolding, it is difficult to quantify its impact, but we are confident about the region’s recovery.

Asia is still home to some of the fastest growing economies in the world and while the pandemic has put the brakes on rising prosperity, some recoveries are underway. The most obvious is China, which according to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, is the only G20 country projected to have positive real GDP growth in 2020 at 1.8%.

Malaysia is also expected to make up lost ground quite quickly and will be one of the few insurance markets in Asia to avoid contraction this year. While India’s general insurance is still set to grow 4% in 2020.

In the absence of significant further waves of Covid-19 that affect the region broadly, we can expect that Asia will be amongst the first regions to recover economically from the pandemic. We can also expect insurance in Asia to emerge even stronger than before the pandemic with higher risk awareness and a greater demand for digitalisation, innovation and customer centricity, and a better understanding of the need for protection.

IAN: What are some of the structural market shifts you’ve been seeing in the region? 

Leonardi: The most obvious is the acceleration of the digital business model as the pandemic forced interactions with insurers to shift even further away from in-person meetings. While there will always be a role for the agent, it is adapting (and has now accelerated) to one across multiple communications channels and digital platforms. Traditional insurers who had already embedded much of this digital transformation before the pandemic will be less effected.

It is likely that Asia, particularly China, will be a driver of global non-life and life growth, and this will be accelerated by its expected rebound from the current crisis.

The need for agile product development has become a necessity. Customers are proactively asking for help to bridge their protection gaps and insurers are looking at ways to address a broad range of needs. In addition, the demand for telehealth services are on the rise and proving to be an important component for propositions.

The pandemic has been a catalyst for the acceleration of customer centricity. With the situation changing rapidly, insurers must act with integrity and empathy to navigate customers through the current challenges in order to retain them and provide them with an expanding range of solutions.

IAN: Which areas and business lines is Generali now focusing on? Where are you investing? 

Leonardi: Underpinning all priorities is our focus on our customers and how we can deliver a better experience and work with them to become a lifetime partner. We are continuously looking at how we can drive innovations through data analytics and digitalising our current services.

Looking at India, for example, at the onset of the lockdown period due to the pandemic we were digitally prepared to mobilise the production of a Digital Sales Kit. In just 40 days, our front-line sales executives were equipped to conduct all their client interactions remotely. While in China, our pocket-service app has reached 932,000 registered users with an average monthly activity rate of 15.8%, which is significantly higher than the industry average.

Building our brand in the region is also very important. Customers turn to Generali because we are a leading well-established European brand and in recent years, we have invested in building our brand in Asia. This year, for example, we rolled out our global advertising campaign to our markets in Indonesia in August and Vietnam in October.

Distribution is also a priority and we continue to focus on developing the professionalism of our agents and developing non – traditional customer ecosystems as key drivers of our growth. Our agents are an integral part of our business because the relationships they have with our customers are part of the reason why our customers do business with us. Currently we have more than 60,000 agents in the region, and we plan to double this in the next few years.

Not surprisingly, there are a lot of players in the region trying to tap these opportunities and we believe by focusing on delivering the best service and the best value propositions we will be able to attract customers and develop professional agency distribution capability.

IAN: Generali’s joint venture in Malaysia has recently been in the news. How is it faring, and can you give any updates?

Leonardi: As mentioned earlier, we are very keen to grow our business in the markets where we are present, and Malaysia is certainly one of them.

The country is home to a large and growing middle-class population and the insurance penetration rate is less than 5%, which is relatively low compared to more mature Asian insurance countries. Government initiatives are underway to align Malaysia’s regulatory regime with those of the most advanced economies in the world, to introduce more equity to insurance pricing and to evolve the country’s digital economy.

With this positive outlook we remain confident about our business in Malaysia. Over the last five years, we have enjoyed working together with our business partner to reshape MPI Generali which is now set for profitable growth especially in the retail sector and to deliver even greater value to our customers.

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