Sri Lanka Insurance to introduce bankassurance

Sri Lanka Insurance (SLI), on the back of launching its life product portfolio under one umbrella to better face the competition together with customer demands, is gearing to launch bankassurance products by next year.

“We are looking at bankassurance, which is a mixture between banking and insurance products and revisiting the whole concept,” Nalaka Godahewa, the newly appointed CEO of SLI said.

He said that the company is aware that the insurance industry in the developed world and even in the region is moving towards new channels and hence such new products will be welcome in the market.

“We do not stick only to traditional channels … we are exploring bankassurance actively. We have also done some work pertaining to bankassurance,” he explained.

He added that the company has been growing at around 20 percent during the last two to three years, but said that the growth potential is much higher. “We are growing above industry standards, but our growth potential is much higher. The total insurance business is less than Rs.50 billion and growing at only two to three percent,” he said, adding that the low growth rates of the industry speaks for the lack of awareness in insurance.

“People do not understand insurance, because it has become more a ‘push market’ and there is no major effort at educating the public. Therefore, the industry is growing at a less pace that the potential,” he said.

Explaining about the new umbrella brand called ‘Sri Lanka – Life’ covering all the life insurance products offered by SLI targeting difference segments of the society, Godahewa said the motive behind this move was to do away with ‘negative’ advertising of life insurance products, while talking about social and personal values.

“When we looked at the life product advertisements, it was all negative. This is not the right message, especially when the country was not in a comfortable position. Therefore we wanted to convey the positive side of our products and let people look at insurance as a positive thing,” he said. “We wanted to create an awareness of the need for people to stand up for the nation, country, people and your life. When you talk about life- it is a message. Future is always about investment,” he further explained.

He added that SLI has strived to make an awareness of choosing insurance products wisely and not impulsively, on emotion.

“We were also product based sellers. We also wanted to create the need to buy our products and move away from product-based selling,” he explained.