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ife insurer Sun Life Financial Indonesia believes Indonesia'€™s insurance market still has a bright future despite a slowdown in most of the country'€™s business sectors.

Elin Waty, the newly-appointed CEO of the Canada-based Sun Life Financial'€™s local unit said on Tuesday that the slowdown currently experienced by Southeast Asia'€™s largest economy was only temporary, and it was still better than the situation during the 1998 and 2008 financial crisis.

'€œOur economic growth as of June was still recorded at 4.67 percent, while in 1998 it was minus 13.1 percent and 4.12 percent in 2008,'€ she said during a media briefing in South Jakarta.

Elin added that Indonesia'€™s market was still promising, citing that her company was still enjoying robust growth. '€œOur sales are even better than last year'€™s,'€ she said.

Sun Life Financial Indonesia booked a premium income of Rp 532.7 billion (US$36.26 million) during the second quarter of this year, or 30.82 percent from the Rp 407.2 billion reaped in the same period, last year. Its investment value also rose by 16.92 percent year-on-year (yoy) to Rp 6.15 trillion as of June from Rp 5.26 trillion.

Elin said that her firms growth was far above the industry'€™s, and that it aimed to book at least a 23 percent growth by the year-end, the same number recorded last year. '€œCurrently, we have no plan to revise the target,'€ she said.

The Indonesian Life Insurance Association (AAJI) revealed earlier this month that the industry recorded a premium income of Rp 67.82 trillion in the second quarter this year, a 26.6 percent increase from the Rp 53.58 trillion in the same period last year. The life insurance industry'€™s investment value rose by 21 percent to Rp 320.51 trillion in the second quarter from Rp 264.97 trillion in the same period last year.

The number of policyholders also increased by 22.9 percent to 57.02 million people, from the previous 46.41 million people, leaving wide markets available as the country a population of around 252 million people.

The AAJI is still optimistic about achieving a 20 to 30 percent total revenue growth this year despite drops in revenues and investment returns due to the plunge in stock prices.

Life insurers saw investment returns nosedive by 103.4 percent to minus Rp 710 billion in the April to June period this year from Rp 20.78 trillion in the corresponding period a year ago. The plunge caused total revenues to drop by 8.7 percent to Rp 69.97 trillion yoy from Rp 76.6 trillion in the second quarter of last year.

Sun Life Indonesia head of investment Yudhistira Susanto said on Tuesday that his firm'€™s investment returns were '€œin line with the market'€™s condition'€, but refused to further explain the numbers.

'€œHowever, we always carry out screenings on the companies before making investments, ensuring they are prudent, so that when the market rebounds, the investment returns will be maximum,'€ he explained.

Elin said that the bearish stock market was actually a good chance for customers to top up investments as prices of unitlinks, whose components contained stocks, were '€œdiscounted'€.

'€œWe tell our agents that it is a sin if they run away from customers and not advise them about this,'€ she said. (prm)