‘AI’ has been the talk of the insurance industry in Singapore over the past few week. However, the ‘AI’ is not about how Artifical Intelligence can improve the efficiency of this industry but Allianz offer to take over Income.
I had seen many debate on the pros n cons of the acquisition and shall not repeat what’s said by many experts. Here’s my 2 cents on Allianz-Income saga.
Just sharing my early days when I started my career as an Insurance Agent with AXA Life in 1998. Income was known as NTUC Income Insurance Co-Operative Limited back then. Even though it was a co-op then, it didn’t have the ‘cheapest’ policy and neither the policy have the ‘best’ return. However, they did have one of the lowest entry premium for most policies. What this means is the lower income group can start have their own plans as well. What was really good then was being a co-op, they allowed the policy holders to nominate their spouses under a irrevocable nomination whereas all other insurers will be under the Section 73 of the Conveyancing and Law of Property Act. This is an important part of nomination as we see more cases of divorce along the way. In any case, we get back to the saga.
Then I joined an independent financial advisory firm in 2005 where we have to compare products from different companies before making a recommendation to our clients. I remember NTUC Income still have reasonably good plans but other insurers could be better in terms of premiums or benefits. In short, that’s to say every company has its pros n cons & there is no best or cheapest plan or else all other insurers will have to close shop.
Fast forward to 2022, NTUC Income convert from a co-operative to a company with the press release announcing.
As a distribution partner with Income, we had seen good improvement from them and despite being a company instead of Co-Op, they are still doing a good job at community level. With that, although I cannot say for sure if the new ‘owner’ will stick to the same mission & vision statement of Income, I believe it will not sway too far.
But my question is if “NTUC Income Corporatises to Further Strengthen Its Competitiveness for Long-term Growth“, why are they looking at any company for fund injection now? It’s been only 2 years since it was corporatises. 24 months is short for any human beings like alone to be consider long term for a company. Are we making a decision too hastily?
I can understand profitability is bottom like for any organisation may it be a co-op or company. If the company is not profitable or sustainable, it will not exist and that’s the last thing we want to see for any organisation. However, does it mean we need to be a corporation to excel? If so, why Income didn’t after its corporatization. And to end, I would like to list out a few organisations which are familar to us.
What’s common amongst the 5 organisations is other than being rich and famous, they are also set up as cooperative. We may have to think again what might cause a company not to grow.
My IFA@Sg 