April 27, 2016
Insuring women in Thailand: a bet today for tomorrow
Chotiros Borisut, 42, is an outstanding example of this new class of Thai working women who combine their work and home lives with ambition and respect for traditions.
2 minutes
As national sales director for Krungthai-AXA Life, she manages several agencies and leads a team of 5,700 staff, 80% of which are women. Chotiros owes part of her success to her understanding of a strategic market in Thailand: women’s insurance.
“In Thailand, women make most of the household’s economic decisions. More often than not, the husbands go along with their wives’ decisions. So I started to talk to the wives directly and that worked extremely well. They have a more serious attitude towards risk and make decisions quickly”. Chotiros Borisut, national sales director, Krungthai-AXA Life
Meet Chotiros Borisut, national sales director, Krungthai-AXA Life
Women@distribution
Promoting gender diversity within its sales teams is crucial for the Group: in March, an all-women seminar brought together distribution agents from Switzerland and Morocco, two countries where the sales forces are still predominantly male.
Tomorrow, women will control 75% of global discretionary spending. Today, women represent almost 50% of the working population and occupy 40% of higher-level jobs in Thailand. Three-quarters of the customers insured by Chotiros Borisut are women.
With the country’s demographic and economic development, Thai people’s expectations and needs have changed considerably. Over the past 15 years of her career, Chotiros has seen their perception of insurance evolve. Life insurance, private health or savings, which were still poorly known and misunderstood just a few years ago, are now part of everyday life.
Chotiros Borisut
National sales director, Krungthai-AXA Life
In a still unstable economic climate, the main concerns of Thai women are to save money and protect the future and stability of their family
Another major concern for women is how to finance their retirement. Women stop work at 60 and have an average life expectancy of 77, so they have to finance nearly two decades: the basic state pension is meager and family solidarity is declining, so it can be hard to make ends meet.
Key Figures
Thai women and insurance
The challenges for insurers in Thailand
The two main challenges for insurers in Thailand are to offer products that are better aligned with financing retirement needs and to make women entrepreneurs more aware of the need to protect themselves against risks.
Women set aside 3% of their income for insurance today, but would be willing to increase this to 10 to 15% if they had access to relevant offers. In the next few years, the market could grow by 5 to 8%, potentially reaching € 8 billion by 2030.
And Thailand is not the only emerging country to have a women’s market with untapped potential: the SheforShield: Insure Women to Better Protect All study, conducted in 10 countries, found that the market for women’s insurance in emerging countries could grow from € 98 billion today to € 874 euros by 2030.
