FWD Group

Hong Kong insurance company FWD Group has made impressive inroads across Asia in just half a decade, pairing an aggressive acquisition strategy with a technology-focused approach aimed at tapping the region's young and growing middle class.

Hong Kong-based FWD has steadily expanded its market share here thanks partly to a lineup of easy-to-understand insurance products, such as savings-type plans with no termination fees, as well as its embrace of digital technologies. Television commercials featuring young, active people have helped the insurer win over younger consumers.

The company earned more premium revenue via direct sales channels such as the internet than any of its peers in the January-September period of 2017, data from the Hong Kong Insurance Authority shows.

"Not having a big legacy [such as large agency networks] enables us to invest in technology and make changes very fast," CEO Huynh Thanh Phong.

FWD is the insurance arm of Pacific Century Group, a conglomerate led by Richard Li Tzar-kai, tycoon Li Ka-shing's younger son. Richard Li, whose wealth Forbes estimates at $4.4 billion, aims to make financial services a third pillar of his business alongside telecommunications and real estate.

Pacific Century acquired the Hong Kong, Macau and Thai insurance operations of Dutch financial group ING in 2013, rebranding them as FWD. It has invested more than $3 billion in the business over the last five years. "As a private company, we can take a very long-term view in our investment," said Phong, who took the helm in 2014 after leading AIA Group's South and Southeast Asian operations.

GROWTH MARKETS FWD seeks to become a "pan-Asian" insurer, and acquisitions form a key part of its strategy toward this end. The company in 2016 bought Great Eastern Life (Vietnam) from Great Eastern Life Assurance, as well as Singapore's Shenton Insurance. It also expanded into the Philippines in 2014 and Indonesia via a joint venture in 2015.

The 10 countries in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations "have a combined population of around 600 million people," Phong noted.

"Young people join the workforce, accumulate wealth and enter into [the] middle class. It's very conducive" to selling life insurance, he added.

Japan joined the list in 2017 with FWD's acquisition of AIG Fuji Life Insurance -- now FWD Fuji Life Insurance -- from U.S.-based American International Group.