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ndonesia is among the five Asian markets of Canadian multinational life-insurer Sun Life Financial and the company is looking to “steepen the trajectory of growth” in the region.

With the low penetration-level of only 1 percent of the country’s gross domestic product (GDP), life insurers in Indonesia have booked more than 20 percent growth in the last four years — giving wide room for the industry to expand in the world’s fourth-most populated country.

During a recent visit to Indonesia, Sun Life Financial president and CEO Dean A. Connor spoke to The Jakarta Post to share his strategies to achieve what he described as an “ambitious goal”.

Sun Life Financial’s Indonesian branch aims to be among the top 10 biggest insurers by market share within the next three or four years, and that is only a part of the parent company’s greater goal to “grow our business in Asia to a significant degree”, according to Connor.

Here are edited excerpts of the interview:

Question: People say the world is moving to the East, with the developed nations struggling to boost their economies while Asian countries have been on the rise. How has that changed Sun Life Financial’s business direction?

Answer: We undertook a major review of our strategy and made some pretty significant announcements to focus the company on four pillars of growth.

The first is to be the best performing life-insurer in Canada, where the company started in 1865. The second is the US. In the US, we decided to narrow our focus and stop selling two particular lines of business [insurance] and concentrate on a third line — voluntary benefits, group insurance. The third pillar is to grow our asset-management business globally.

The fourth pillar is Asia. We want to grow our business in Asia to a significant degree. Today in Asia, we operate in five markets — China, India, Hong Kong, the Philippines and Indonesia. Those markets represent 70 percent of the population in Asia and 90 percent of market growth in our industry over the next decade. So we’re in five markets that matter and we look at the growth opportunities in Asia, and they’re very significant.

In fact, our business has grown a lot in Asia in the last five years. We laid out an ambitious plan to grow to 2 billion Canadian dollars [US$2.02 billion] for net income by 2015, and within that, to grow our Asian business to CA$250 million of earnings by 2015. This is an ambitious goal but we think it’s achievable.

How do you think that it’s achievable and what are your strategies for it?

Our strategies in Asia are, first of all, within the five markets in which we operate today. We are broadening and deepening what we do. So we take Indonesia as a great example.

Two years ago we started a “bancassurance” business [where banks sell another firm’s insurance] with CIMB Niaga and that has been an enormous success. It is the most successful bancassurance partnership we have anywhere in the world. It has very rapid growth, very strong results. So, finding more bancassurance partners like CIMB and finding more of those bancassurance partners in more of our markets are a key part of our growth strategy.

The second key part of our growth strategy is to expand the number of agents that we have. Here in Indonesia, our plan is to double the number of agents from 4,500 to 9,000 agents over the next three years.

Other alternatives, like telemarketing, direct marketing, are also big sources of growth. We also see in certain markets a need for pension and group insurance, and health care packages.

And the last piece is asset management. We have some asset-management businesses that are very successful. In the Philippines, we are mutual-funds company number two in the market. In India, we’re number four. We’ve just been licensed in China as an asset-management company. We’d like to do more asset management in Asia.

Why do you plan on massive expansion in Asia, with what you said an “ambitious plan”, as one of Sun Life’s four business pillars focus? Do you view the rise of Asia as permanent rather than just a cyclical trend?

The trajectory, the growth in Asia, we expect to steepen the trajectory of that growth. Investing in Asia is not a new thing, but we’re intensifying that so that we could grow even faster and make it a larger part of Sun Life going forward.

How is Indonesia’s position compared with other Asian markets given the fact that China and India have been the darlings of the region? How is Sun Life’s view on Indonesia?

The insurance market is, on the one hand, a smaller market compared to China and India. On the other hand, we like the market here because in the case of China, we show up and we’re competing with large, state-owned enterprises. And they are tough competitors. And in India, we show up, we’re competing with one great big state-owned enterprise.

So one of the nice things about competing in Indonesia is there are lots of companies competing here, but it tends to be a level playing field, a private-sector competition. It tends to be a playing field where we’re going face-to-face against competitors with the same set of rules.

Another aspect of the country is that the multichannel distribution model: agency, bancassurance, telemarketing and so on. Other countries such as China and India have bancassurance and agency. The telemarketing and direct distribution parts seem to be growing faster here in Indonesia. I don’t know why but it’s an interesting aspect of Indonesia that we’re really trying to take advantage of and grow that part of our business as fast as we can.

But there’s still an issue of financial illiteracy in Indonesia. How could Sun Life contribute in making more people have access to financial services?

Financial literacy is one way that we see getting into the population, and helping people to realize what’s possible. I think the bank relationships, CIMB Niaga and the other bank distribution partners we have, is another way to do it. Because the first thing people do when they have an income is they get a bank account.

They borrow money to buy a motorcycle; they borrow money to buy a car. They ultimately borrow money for a house, a mortgage. The insurance that they buy with that is often the first insurance that they’re buying. So, I think the bank distribution channel is a great way to educate people about what’s possible.

As time goes on, people will learn more. Maybe it’s time for them to get an advisor. And, all around the world, one of the universal truths is that people who have an advisor feel more confident about their financial situation. They feel more in control. They feel more certain of their future.