Manulife Indonesia CEO urges industry to tackle public distrust

Indonesia’s insurance penetration is among the lowest in the region.

Indonesia’s life insurers should confront public distrust in the industry to boost policy sales and expand market reach, according to PT Asuransi Jiwa Manulife Indonesia’s CEO.

“Life insurance is a long-term commitment,” Manulife Indonesia CEO Lauren Sulistiawati told Insurance Asia. “There’s fear about whether the company will still be there when the time comes to claim the policy.”

Building customer confidence should take precedence over in-fighting among players, she said in a Microsoft Teams interview.

“The challenge is how to make the pie bigger instead of just fighting over the same size of pie.”

Indonesia’s insurance penetration was among the lowest in the region at just 1.39% of gross domestic product in 2022, according to the Insurance Council of Indonesia.

Sulistiawati expects little change in the 2024 figures. “Whether it’s 2.5%, 1.5%—the silver lining is that it’s low, so we have to do more to expand it.”

To ease fears about insurer reliability, Sulistiawati urged industry leaders and the Life Insurance Association of Indonesia to educate the public about insurers' governance and financial strength.

Proposals for a government-backed guarantee scheme could also help restore public trust, she said, though such initiatives are likely years away. “Until then, all parties need to play a role in giving customers more confidence,” she added.

“Do the people we want to sell our products to know that Manulife is different? They don’t,” Sulistiawati said. “If we don’t address these issues fast, we’ll always be held back.”

Sulistiawati brings over 20 years of banking experience, having held leadership roles at Citigroup, Inc., PT Bank Permata Tbk, and most recently led Commonwealth Bank’s move to OCBC. She now plans to apply a bank-style focus on “customer obsession” to Manulife Indonesia’s growth strategy.

“A high-net-worth customer going through the same life stage as someone in the affluent or below-affluent segment will still have different needs,” she said. “The products that matter to each group will be very different.”

She added that digitalisation and efficiency are no longer enough in a market where trust and literacy remain low. “It’s not only about having the best process or the most digitalised process,” she said. “It’s about giving the best solution to the customer.”

Sulistiawati also criticised the industry’s slow response to broader economic and geopolitical risks. “These issues impact customer behaviour,” she said. “But the insurance sector doesn’t respond with the same urgency [as banks].”

Whilst the focus on financial inclusion and public education remains central to her agenda, Sulistiawati said she is also accountable to shareholders.

“We have stakeholders who expect bottom-line results,” she said. “So whilst we focus on inclusion and literacy, we also need to deliver value to shareholders.”

Last year, Manulife Indonesia’s net income more than quadrupled to $113.5m (IDR1.84t) from a year earlier.