Hong Leong Assurance Wins Executive, Innovator and Team of the Year for Financial Services

The insurer delivered an outstanding performance and embraced out-of-the-box thinking in 2019.

Faced with a more prudent budget than its rivals as well as a saturated market teeming with more than 30 other insurers, Hong Leong Assurance Pte Ltd turned to more innovative strategies to get ahead of the crowded pack.

While many insurers go on a price battle, we chose a more balanced approach to differentiate,” said CEO Kelvin Lim Choong Kiat, the winner of the Executive of the Year - Financial Services award at this year’s SBR Management Excellence Awards.

Having moved from one of the largest American insurers in Singapore to a then-brand new general insurer in 2015, Lim was tasked with a daunting challenge to rapidly expand the brand’s presence and client base whilst also building a solid foundation for long-term growth.

He focused first on assembling a good team of leaders for all 9 departments, all with more than a decade of experience each, then made a strong splash by kicking off the new insurance brand and acquiring over 200,000 customers.

The company has recorded $50 million in revenue over the past 4 years, and the strong customer acquisition has been a boon for the broader Hong Leong Group, the Malaysian conglomerate in which the company is a member.

By taking on calculated risks and embracing an innovation-driven mindset that puts customers first, Lim led the insurer through a string of milestones.

Hong Leong Assurance was the first insurer in the country to offer a mobile phone insurance program, the first to bundle high affinity services to its insurance products, the first to include a QR Payment option for online customers, and the first to provide immediate post-journey medical claims to all travel insurance policyholders via a partnership with a local medical network.

A focus on digital distribution was key to Lim’s successful growth strategy in the past few years, bolstering availability of products across all online platforms and establishing robust digital B2B2C platforms to support more than 1,000 direct agents.

Lim quickly made a mark by designing more than 15 consumer and corporate insurance products from scratch to ensure the company operates with a diversified portfolio.

Having set a culture that encourages and rewards innovation, Kelvin emboldened his team to think of more creative solutions to painstaking industry challenges.

This includes Claudine Heng, head of customer strategy & direct marketing, who was instrumental in the insurer’s delivery of the industry’s first travel insurance product with NCD and immediate claims and the first hybrid critical illness product.

Heng’s leadership in designing insurance products infused with benefits that truly address needs not currently being addressed by the rest of the industry earned her the Innovator of the Year - Financial Services award.

“It is the innovative culture that Kelvin has created within his team that has allowed the company to progress every quarter,” said Heng, recognising the group effort that goes into delivering industry-shaping insurance products and the impact of Lim’s obsession with delighting customers. “Together with his team, he takes the extra effort to ensure he puts together non-insurance benefits into his plans, to bring additional value to his customers.”

Heng also credited the tireless efforts of Hong Leong Assurance’s relatively smaller team. What the team may have lacked in manpower numbers compared to larger players, it made up for in passion and entrepreneurship -- two traits that recruiters sought after during the hiring process as the insurer started to build up its ranks. Trainees undergo a rigorous and structured 12-month training programme, then they are quickly immersed in escalated situations or challenges where they can test solutions and learn.

“We find this a very effective way of bringing out the best,” said Lim, noting that this empowered approach has helped attract a constant stream of high-potential new hires, and changes the usual perception that a career in the general insurance industry is not as glamourous as others. He added that Hong Leong’s new breed of insurance talents have been hungry to prove themselves, and this has translated to more determination in digging deep for opportunities in an already developed market, as well as a stronger discipline to manage costs and budgets.

The Singapore Business Review Management Excellence Awards was held on 26 November 2019 at the Conrad Centennial Singapore.

The 2019 winners were judged by a panel consisting of Henry Tan, Managing Director at NEXIA TS; David Chew, Executive Director, Risk Advisory at Deloitte Southeast Asia; Lim Wei Wei, Partner and Practice Leader, Governance and Risk at Baker Tilly TFW; Yang Eu Jin, Partner and Co-Head of Capital Markets Practice at RHTLaw Taylor Wessing LLP; and Pardeep Singh Khosa, Director at Davinder Singh Chambers LLC.

If you would like to join the 2020 awards and be awarded as one of the most outstanding management executives of Singapore, please email Julie Anne Nuñez at [email protected]