Corporate solutions in the insurance field focuses on group insurance and employee benefits for every type of company, from multinationals and large corporations to SMEs and micro enterprises. Thomas Lee, chief corporate solutions officer for Hong Kong and Macau at AIA, talks about the ever-changing needs in this market and the effects on professionals in the field.
What are the responsibilities of a chief corporate solutions officer at an insurer?
Our corporate solutions arm includes a number of teams such as actuarial and underwriting, sales, product development and marketing, operations, and IT. My responsibility is to lead the team to provide group insurance products and services to clients, finding gaps in the market to be filled, and meeting and exceeding client needs.
How has the corporate solutions landscape changed, and what effect does this have on professionals in the field?
Clients in the region are becoming increasingly sophisticated and their needs are ever-changing. Services that were new five or 10 years ago are considered “vanilla” now. For professionals in the field, we need to constantly innovate to think ahead of the market. We do not play administrative roles; instead, I count on teamwork to create, develop and pioneer new products and services.
What separates a good group insurance professional from an average one?
The key to success is innovation and a strong sense of market needs. A good corporate solutions professional meets and exceeds these ever-changing needs. Throughout all subsections of a successful corporate solutions team, innovative mindsets are apparent.
Can you tell us your career path?
I am an actuary, a Fellow of the US Society of Actuaries, with an economics degree from the University of Hong Kong. I have risen up the ranks during my more than 25 years in insurance in the areas of actuarial, marketing and product development.
With more than 15 years at AIA, I served in several senior management positions in Hong Kong and Macau before becoming director of group product strategy at AIA Group. In my current position as chief corporate solutions officer at AIA Hong Kong and Macau, I am responsible for leading the development of the group insurance business and overseeing client relationships, as well as the marketing and operations of the group insurance business.
As an actuary yourself, can you tell us the role of actuaries in insurance?
Actuaries spend about 10 years obtaining their professional qualifications. In insurance, they are responsible for things like pricing, the calculation of risks and cost control. They need to rapidly analyse big data in order to acquire a deep understanding of the latest situations, be it new trends, premiums, prominent illnesses, medical needs or the ageing society.
How about the roles and requirements of other corporate solutions job functions?
For product development and marketing, practitioners need to learn about market needs and acquire insights using marketing sense, market research and analyses. Such research encompasses a wide array of areas such as records of claims – which reveal trends in which illnesses are prominent – or surveys, such as our SME Group Medical Protection Survey which revealed significant gaps between employee expectations and employer perspectives regarding group insurance. In short, practitioners in this area have to be daring enough to initiate product designs, while paying attention to detail in order to remain sensitive to clients’ changing needs.
Operations and IT, on the other hand, deploy digital technology to make claims and underwriting easy for both clients and claims staff. At AIA, such teams do things like launch mobile apps and servicing tools to meet the needs of clients.
What is the typical career path in corporate solutions?
Corporate solutions offers prominent career paths to aspiring young professionals. Fresh graduates in the sales team, for example, usually join as assistant associates, and may be promoted to become associates who handle cases independently. A senior associate handles more complicated cases. From assistant manager to manager to senior management roles, a person gradually takes on more important roles. An associate director takes care of high-level management and strategies.
How does AIA retain and attract talent?
While we aim to enhance Ease of Doing Business (EODB) for clients, we also ensure that we do not unnecessarily increase our employees’ workloads. ‘Happy employees, happy customers’ is our aim. We do so through various means, such as investing in the development of digital technology and proprietary mobile apps to make things like distributing policy information, processing claims and creating e-statements easy for all parties.
This article appeared in the Classified Post print edition as Finding answers.
