Page 96 - TGIA_AnnualReport2013

Message from

TGIA President

In 2013, Thai economy had changed and became
significantly volatile. The Fiscal Policy Office revised the Thai
economic growth rate projection in 2013 to 2.8%, decreasing
from 3.7% previously projected, because the domestic demand
tended to decline. Private sector consumption grew at a slower
pace of 0.4% while private investment shrank by 0.3% as a
result of declining confidence of entrepreneurs. Government
spending tended to be lower than expected. Public sector
consumption expanded at 5.6% while public investment shrank
by 4.1% due to a delay in budget disbursement for mega
projects. On the export side, Thailand’s export of goods and
services grew at 4.1% as a result of an expansion in export of
services in parallel to a growth of number of foreign tourists.
However, the value of export of goods was expected to shrink
by 0.6% owning to a slow recovery of the world’s economy.

For the non-life insurance business, for the first 10 months of
2013, the Office of Insurance Commission reported that the Direct
Premium Written (DPW) was 169,627 million baht, an increase of 14.86%
from the corresponding period in the prior year. Motor insurance
obtained the highest market share of the DPW at 98,888 million baht, an
increase of 16.29% from the corresponding period in the prior year, as a
result of the delivery of cars under the first-car scheme in 2013.
Miscellaneous insurance and fire insurance had the DPW at 56,698
million baht, growing at 12.75%, and 9,590 million baht, growing at
19.58%, respectively. It was apparent that entrepreneurs and people
understood more and opted to use insurance as a tool to manage their
risks.

In the past year, Thai General Insurance Association had
undertaken and conducted many activities, pertaining to the annual plan
proposed by the Board of Directors and approved by the member
companies, which were beneficial to the insurance business as a whole.
Key operations and activities are as follows:

Being a center for pursuing 2011 flood claims from reinsurance
companies, following the guidelines jointly set by the insurance
companies, and being an intermediary to accelerate the
reinsurance companies to pay the claims;

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