I

ndonesian multinational insurer Sun Life Financial will double the number of its agents and set up an asset management unit in the next few years to be among the top 10 industry players.

Sun Life Financial Indonesia is currently No. 12 in terms of market share in the insurance industry, with total premiums accounting for 2.2 percent of the entire market, Sun Life Financial Indonesia country manager Bert Paterson said on Wednesday.

“We have a target to be in the top 10. Maybe not necessarily this year, but within the next three years,” Paterson told The Jakarta Post in an interview. “Consensus forecasts that within the market [growth will be] between 20 to 25 percent over the next three to four years. So if that is the case, then clearly, if we are going to capture market share, we need to be bigger.”

In 2011, Sun Life Financial Indonesia recorded 69 percent growth in premiums to Rp 1.81 trillion (US$197.29 million), Rp 867.8 billion of which are the company’s total premiums and the remaining Rp 943 billion from CIMB Sun Life bank assurance partnership.

Paterson laid out five strategies to achieve greater market share in the industry. The first is enhancing partnership with Bank CIMB Niaga, which accounts for more than half of SLF Indonesia’s premiums.

“On the agency side we are planning to double the number of agents from 4,500 today to 9,000,” he said, adding that ensuring that agents have the ability to offer sharia products is also among their strategies because those have high growth opportunities.

Fourth is seeking new partners beyond the existing five banks. “That number will reach 7, 8, 9, or 10. But I can’t predict when that can happen. So, all I can say is that we’re consistently looking for opportunities to expand our business,” Paterson added.

The other strategy is to enter the asset management market, either through mergers, acquisitions, or setting up our own unit. “It’s an area we’re very interested in and we have a lot of global expertise. We are actively looking for opportunities in Indonesia to enter that market,” he said without disclosing details.

“Growing our asset management business globally and growing Asia to be a more significant part of Sun Life’s results are among the parent company’s four pillar strategies introduced last year. The other two are becoming the best performing life insurer in Canada and enhancing our leadership position in US group insurance, as well as becoming top 5 in voluntary benefits.”

Sun Life Financial’s president and CEO Dean A. Connor called the targets “ambitious” but achievable to grow the company’s business in Asia “to a significant degree” given the extraordinary growth opportunities in the region.

“We laid out an ambitious plan to grow to 2 billion Canadian dollars in net income by 2015, and within that to grow our Asian business to $250 million in earnings by 2015,” Connor told the Post.