We are a Pan-Asian life insurer with a customer-led and tech-enabled model. We were founded in 2013 by Mr. Richard Li, with the ambition of forging our own path as a leading insurer in Asia. Our vision is changing the way people feel about insurance. We have built our leadership team and culture to align with our vision.
We have built a Pan-Asian presence by adapting to evolving market trends and customer needs. We have adopted a multi-channel distribution model, invested in digital infrastructure and data analytics capabilities, and expanded partnership and referral opportunities. According to NMG, the aggregate life insurance gross written premiums (“GWP”) in our current markets is forecast to grow from an estimated US$407 billion in 2023 to US$579 billion in 2033, offering significant market opportunities. We believe that structural demographic and macroeconomic factors, including middle-class expansion, ongoing wealth accumulation, a significant protection gap, which is the estimated additional life insurance premiums needed annually to fully meet mortality and health protection needs, as well as digital acceleration, are key drivers for the growth of the Pan-Asian insurance sector.
We have grown from three markets at inception to ten markets, including Hong Kong (and Macau), Thailand (and Cambodia), Japan, and Emerging Markets, comprising the Philippines, Indonesia, Singapore, Vietnam and Malaysia (collectively, the “FWD markets”, each a “FWD market”). We have entered certain of these new markets by obtaining new licences (such as in the Philippines and Indonesia) or via the acquisition of licensed life insurers with limited operations locally (such as in Singapore, Vietnam, Malaysia and Cambodia). Our Hong Kong (and Macau), Thailand (and Cambodia), Japan and Emerging Markets operations contributed 34.2%, 32.6%, 15.7% and 17.5%, respectively, of new business contractual service margin (“new business CSM”) in 2024. Our geographic coverage provides us with growth opportunities in developed insurance markets such as Hong Kong (and Macau) and Japan, as well as exposure to Southeast Asia, which comprises some of the fastest growing insurance markets in the world with an expanding but underinsured population. Our Southeast Asia markets (comprising Thailand (and Cambodia), the Philippines, Indonesia, Singapore, Vietnam and Malaysia) contributed approximately 50% of our new business CSM in 2024. We were ranked as a top five insurer and the top bancassurer within our Southeast Asia markets by annualised premium equivalent (“APE”) in 2023, according to NMG.
We achieved 5.2 times growth of our APE in 2024 since our first full year of operations in 2014, growing from US$309 million in 2014 to US$1,916 million in 2024. Our APE increased by 18.3% on a constant exchange rate (“CER”) basis from 2022 to 2023 and by 18.6% on a CER basis from 2023 to 2024. To facilitate a more meaningful comparison, we also present APE on a “like-for-like” basis (which reflects the impact of the revisions and updates to our methodology and operating assumptions at the end of 2023; see “Financial Information – Key Performance Indicators” for details), on the basis of which our APE increased by 20.9% from 2023 to 2024.
We are customer-led and we put customers at the heart of everything we do. We have adopted a multi-channel distribution model enabled by technology to enhance, extend and empower our distribution, effectively serving diverse customer needs and meeting customers wherever, whenever and however they choose. Our distribution channels include bancassurance, agency, brokerage/IFA and others, which include digital commerce and other distribution channels. These channels contributed 46.6%, 15.2%, 31.8% and 6.5% respectively, of our VNB in 2024. To serve sophisticated, affluent and mass-affluent customers who value personalised interactions, we have built a leading Southeast Asian bancassurance platform with eight exclusive partnerships as of the Latest Practicable Date.
We were ranked sixth in 2024 among multi-national insurers globally in terms of the number of Million Dollar Round Table (“MDRT”) registered members. As of 31 December 2024, we had over 2,900 brokerage and IFA partners. We have also built a digital commerce platform to effectively reach customers through our direct-to-customer (“D2C”) eCommerce platform, our bank partners’ digital channels and ecosystem partners’ platforms supported by application programming interface (“API”) integration, and online-to-online, online-to- offline and offline-to-online (collectively, “O2O”) referral programmes. Together, our distribution channels grant us access to a number of exclusive and non-exclusive bank partners, with a combined customer base of over 280 million, according to NMG.
We offer easy-to-understand and relevant propositions through our diverse portfolio of life insurance, health insurance, employee benefits (group insurance) and financial planning products. We classify our key products into (i) participating life, (ii) non-participating life, (iii) critical illness, term life, medical and riders, (iv) unit-linked insurance, and (v) group insurance and others, which contributed 36.5%, 28.0%, 22.2%, 7.5% and 5.7%, respectively, of our VNB in 2024. Through our technology and data analytics tools, which are built increasingly upon artificial intelligence (“AI”) and are standardised across our Group, we have made our customers’ insurance journeys simpler, faster and smoother. Our individual policyholder base increased at a CAGR of 4.0% from 31 December 2022 to 31 December 2024.
We have experienced substantial growth and demonstrated a track record of execution, and our business is supported by a strong balance sheet to allow for future growth. We assess our capital adequacy with reference to the Insurance (Group Capital) Rules, which determine the calculation of the Group local capital summation method (“Group LCSM”) tier 1 minimum capital requirement (“MCR”) and prescribed capital requirement (“PCR”) bases. Our Group LCSM free surplus (PCR basis) is the difference between our group available capital and our group prescribed capital requirement (“GPCR”), and our Group LCSM cover ratio (PCR basis) is the ratio of our group available capital to our GPCR. Our Group LCSMtier 1 cover ratio (MCR basis) is the ratio of ourGroup tier 1 available capital to our group minimum capital requirement (“GMCR”). Our Group LCSM cover ratio (PCR basis) was 260% as of 31 December 2024, before giving effect to the net proceeds of the Global Offering.
Source: FWD (01828) Prospectus (IPO Date : 2025/06/26) |