Indonesia Life Insurance Agent

The Indonesian Life Insurance Association (AAJI) eyes employing 650,000 licensed life-insurance agents this year in a bid to deepen the insurance market in the most populous country in Southeast Asia.

Until June this year, the industry had 513,000 licensed agents in operation, an increase of 13.7 percent from 2015. In the last three years, the industry recorded a 12.9 percent growth rate per year in its selling agents.

"It has been increasing, but still far from the Financial Service Authority’s [OJK] target of 10 million agents," AAJI chairman Hendrisman Rahim said at the AAJI office in Jakarta on Friday.

According to AAJI data, the life insurance industry recorded total premiums of Rp 34.3 trillion (US$2.6 billion) as of March 2016. Around 43.9 percent of the premium income came from insurance agents.

"We still rely on agents in selling insurance policies," Hendrisman said, adding that the banking channel, namely bancassurance, was the second biggest contributor to sales.

In terms of volume, the industry saw 18 million policies sold in June, an increase of 10.5 percent compared to 2015. Java was still the main growth contributor, while broader financial literacy was needed before seeing insurance sales growth in other regions, Hendrisman said.