KUALA LUMPUR, Feb 28 -- The General Insurance Association of Malaysia (PIAM) expects the general insurance industry growth this year to be slower or almost similar to its 2018 pace at 1.5 per cent following lack of catalysts moving forward.

Chairman Antony Lee Fook Weng said as there are not many big project announcements to look forward to this year, it expects the fire class to be impacted as it would depend very much on development projects.

“The potential and growth for the industry will also depend on what the government’s direction is, how much money (funds) they will pump into the markets this year,” he told a media briefing on PIAM’s full-year 2018 results here today.

Lee noted that in 2018, the average premium on the motor class, the largest class representing almost 50 per cent of the market share, was reduced by one per cent, while the fire class (19.6 per cent), the second largest class, was reduced by five per cent on its average premiums.

This, he said, has directly impacted the general insurance industry.

Lee said the government’s decision to place social security protection of foreign workers under the Social Security Organisation (Socso) beginning this year has also taken away RM170 million worth of premiums from the industry, and this will be reflected in the 2019 performance.

Meanwhile, deputy chairman Chua Seck Guan said the local automobile and property segments in January this year show better sales data than last year, which is a positive sign and will help the banking sector on loans as well.

“We also hope that commodity prices will also recover this year, which will be good for the marine aviation & transit (MAT) class, which represents 7.4 per cent of the market share,” said Chua.

He said that as the industry looks forward to the full liberalisation of the motor industry this year, PIAM hopes to be allowed access to summons data and the demerit points system to better price premiums according to drivers’ risk.

As at Feb 25, 2018, the industry has introduced 48 new motor and 46 new fire products in the market.

Earlier at the briefing, chief executive officer Mark Lim said the general insurance industry’s 1.5 per cent growth in 2018 was due to higher premiums from the motor and fire classes.

Overall gross written premiums amounted to RM17.92 billion.

Lim said RM14.9 million was paid daily by insurers on property damages, bodily injuries and theft on motor claims.

He noted that the overall numbers of stolen vehicles had continued to trend lower in 2018, declining 25 per cent to 12,496 from 16,729 in 2017 for vehicles for all classes, thanks to PIAM and the Vehicle Theft Reduction Council of Malaysia (VTREC) efforts to combat vehicle theft in the country.

The proposal for VTREC to include reduction of road accidents as a key objective is currently still in discussions with various stakeholders.

-- BERNAMA