A SUCCESSFUL MODEL OF LIFE INSURANCE BUSINESS IN THAILAND
Due to its continuous growth rate, life insurance business needs to adapt to cope with the changing market and be able to create competitive advantage by applying innovation and technology including manipulating marketing strategy for best response to customer needs under supervision of Office of Insurance Commission, the regulatory agency. Over the past decade, the life insurance business has faced problems of risk management, lack of liquidity, high competition and no market power causing some insurance companies have a suspension of business operation. As a result of no provision of risk management both before and after period of insurance, this captioned business cannot manipulate its strategy to cope with the arisen situations and be unable to respond to customer needs that impacts the business success. This research aims to 1) examine the level of variables; human resource potential, digital marketing strategy, management innovation, life insurance benefits and success of the life insurance business in Thailand, 2) explore the influence of the variables; human resource potential, digital marketing strategy, management innovation and life insurance benefits towards the success of the life insurance business in Thailand, and 3) develop the successful model of the life insurance business in Thailand. The mixed research methodology was applied between quantitative and qualitative terms. In view of the quantitative term, the sample group consisted of 340 life insurance agents and the sample size was calculated based on 20-time criteria of the observed variables with the multi-stage method. Data collection was made through questionnaires that were later analyzed by the structural equation modelling. For the qualitative term, an in-depth interview was conducted with 20 primary informants consisting of life insurance agents and experts in life insurance business, in Thailand. The research findings revealed that 1) human resource potential, digital marketing strategy, management innovation and success of the life insurance business in Thailand are all at a high level whereas life insurance benefits are at a moderate level, 2) human resource potential, digital marketing strategy, management innovation and life insurance benefits affected the success of the life insurance business in Thailand at 0.5 statistical significance level, and 3) the successful model of the life insurance business in Thailand as developed by the researcher was namely “ PSIB Model (P = Human Resource Potential,S = Digital Marketing Strategy, I = Management Innovation, B = Life Insurance Benefits). The qualitative findings also indicated that to successfully operate the life insurance business in Thailand, the entrepreneurs should consider the efficiency of life insurance products to be matched with requirements of each target group by offering new insurance plans containing different attractive benefits to enhance market power and competitiveness. In addition, the findings can be further applied as a guideline to define the business operating policy to effectively enhance the success of the life insurance business in Thailand.