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apan’s Tokio Marine insurance group has recently acquired a life insurance company to tap into the country’s growing insurance market.

Last October, the group completed the acquisition of a majority stake in the now defunct PT MAA Life Assurance — a business unit of Malaysia-based MAA Assurance —and renamed it Tokio Marine Life Insurance Indonesia (TMLII).

The Tokio Marine group currently controls 89 percent ownership of the new firm, while PT Multi Artha Aman holds the remaining 11 percent.

According to Tokio Marine Life Insurance Indonesia CEO David J. Beynon, Indonesia offers huge market potential given its large population. “There are about 40 life insurance firms covering 240 million people in Indonesia. So the opportunities are there,” he said during a visit to The Jakarta Post’s office in Jakarta on Wednesday.

As part of its business revamping strategy, Beynon added, TMLII has come up with six new products. When Tokio Marine group took over MAA, the latter only had four sharia-based life insurance products, also known as takaful. One of the sharia-based products was then dropped by TMLII.

 At the moment, TMLII offers nine life insurance products comprising conventional, unit linked and sharia-based segments. This year, the company will expand its unit-linked segment by offering three new products, which will be based on mutual funds.

Under MAA, the insurance company had one unit-linked product and it was based on sharia equities only. In the next few weeks, TMLII would introduce new products, which would cover general equity funds, balanced funds and fixed-income funds, Beynon said.

The revamping strategy includes recruiting more agents and opening new offices as well. The company is looking to have around 1,000 agents by the end of 2013, much higher than the 100 it has currently.

“Now we have offices in Jakarta, Medan [North Sumatra] and Surabaya [East Java]. We have a budget to open 10 offices, but are still thinking about the locations,” he added.

TMLII currently serves between 12,000 and 15,000 clients, most of whom are former MAA customers. By year-end, it hopes to attract at least 2,000 new clients.

With the expansion plan, the company is aiming to reach a total of Rp 12 billion (US$1.24 million) in premium income this year, according to Beynon.

The unit-linked segment is expected to represent a major portion of this figure with 50 percent, followed by conventional with 43 percent and sharia-based with 7 percent.

TMLII also plans to partner with a Muslim association to provide micro insurance in the future. However, Beynon said, it would take at least two years to realize the plan as it needed to stabilize the new business first.