Chairman Shin Chang-jae of Kyobo Life Insurance Co. has been named the Top Asian Insurance Manager of the Year by winning the 2012 Grand Award for the Asian Insurance Industry on Oct. 28 in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, the company said recently.

Shin is the only Korean life insurance top executive to win the award. A member of the award committee said Shin brought great reform to Kyobo when he took the helm of the company and a new corporate culture focused on customers took root under his reforms. The committee member went on to cite that under Shin’s management the life insurer has been able to boost the payment capacity rate by 152 percent in the past 10 years to earn stable profits under its highly effective risk management strategy in explaining the reason for presenting the award to Shin.

Kyobo Life won the award for Top Asian Life Insurance Company in 2009. 

Kyobo Life is committed to pursuing change and innovation in fulfillment of its vision to be “the most preferred life insurance company in the domestic market” and to become a 100-year-old company that commands respect and love among all stakeholders. 

In April 2011, the company declared its Vision 2015, which states the goal “to become the provider of optimum insurance coverage and ongoing services.” The company explains, “To provide optimum insurance coverage and ongoing services means providing customer protection services, which is the most wanted value from the customers, at a level exceeding customers’ expectations and realizing the mission of helping people not to despair with hardships in their lives to the best of our ability.” 

By achieving this goal, the company will be setting the new industry standard with upgraded customer service in the life insurance industry. 

Kyobo Life promises to keep pursuing changes and innovations. Doing so will help it stay strong in the changing environment, proactively meet its customers’ changing needs, and gain the trust of its stakeholders.

Kyobo Life was founded in 1958 based on the philosophy of “promotion of education and formation of national capital.” 

For the past 53 years, it has been fully committed to honest and sincere management in pursuit of mutual prosperity with all stakeholders including customers, financial planners, employees, investors, local communities, and government. 

Since its establishment, Kyobo Life has worked tirelessly to put its core values of customer-centricity, honesty and sincerity, challenge, and creativity into action. Furthermore, Kyobo Life’s transparent and sustainable management practices have built

a trust-based relationship between the company and its customers. Kyobo Life has continuously pursued customer-driven management over the last decade and it became the top quality service provider in the insurance industry. 

As a result, the company won the Customer Satisfaction Management Award for five consecutive years from 2000 to 2004, becoming the first financial institution to be inducted into the Hall of Fame. In addition, Kyobo Life became Korea’s first and only life insurer to be honored as Asia’s best insurer by winning the Life Insurance Company of the Year award in the 2009 Asia Insurance Industry Awards. 

In FY 2010 (April 2010 to March 2011), Kyobo Life recorded total assets of 57.9 trillion won and premium income of 10.8 trillion won, exhibiting healthy volume growth. The net income during the period was 638.9 billion won, with capital pegged at 4.6 trillion won. The company’s solvency margin ratio, as one of the financial soundness criteria, was 225 percent, which is more than twice the recommended level.