Staff Writer

Jerome Kelly, managing director of Lawton Asia, wears several hats very effectively. When he’s not heading this growing business, you might find him contributing to the development of the Irish-Thai Chamber of Commerce, or providing support as the treasurer of the Bangkok Soccer League (BSL).

Steve Thompson pitches in with some questions on local insurance-related topics and finds out where Lawton Asia's products and services fit in.

ThaiAsiaToday.com (TAT): Welcome Jerome, nice to see you again. Could you please tell our readers a bit about Lawton Asia's market?

Jerome Kelly (JK): Our market is largely expatriates and well-educated Thais, who can easily understand the kind of products we’re offering.

TAT: And what are your main areas of activity when it comes to insurance?

JK: We do a lot of medical insurance and personal insurance. We’re now beginning to get lots of what I would describe as ‘international’ Thai companies (as clients), so we find we’re moving into a market the bigger brokers always had, and because we’re offering an international-style service, we’re beginning to compete with them.

TAT: Who are your main corporate customers?

JK: We’ve got some large companies like PCS and Thainox, as well as a lot of the large (international) schools.

TAT: What do these policies cover, and what would you describe as your particular areas of expertise?

JK: In answer to your first question - all risk. In answer to your second question, we’re very strong in medical insurance and we’re getting stronger in general insurance.

TAT: Does this cover healthcare?

JK: In terms of healthcare, we’ve now got two Premier products in Thailand.

Our Premier International product, which provides complete international healthcare cover, is underwritten by Aviva. Our other product - Premier Lite - is aimed at, someone who is probably going to stay here (in Thailand) long-term, who knows how to use the state system – the government hospitals and local hospitals, but also wants the security of an international healthcare product.

This product provides cover of 20 million baht in a lifetime, and up to five million baht a year.

It’s basically a good product for anyone who is spending any significant time living in Thailand. These products are complimentary, while they can be instantly transferable throughout the world.

TAT: How do you compete and how can you ensure proper delivery of your services?

JK: Others try to copy us and have set up rival companies to try to compete, but they just can’t do it. We’ve got 32 staff – 88% of them can speak perfect English – so they can take a call from a foreigner and they are trained to recognize if there’s a problem.

When it comes to employee benefits, we have a foreign manager, and overall have English, French, German, and Japanese language capabilities. We also have highly-experienced Thai staff. It can be highly personalized, as in the case of home insurance. And we’re continually designing new products for our clients.

TAT: Are there any trends locally that might interest our readers?

JK: We’re seeing more and more Thais seeking international healthcare products. They understand what’s happening. They’re obviously medium to high earners, they’re probably good managers of good companies, with high expectations, and they understand the gap in the local medical sector.

The trend is being driven by doctors, through their own experiences and examples.

For example, I had a (medical) problem two years ago. I told the doctor it was fully covered by healthcare, and she said “what?” – this esteemed doctor has since referred to us 20 to 30 people. She’s saying to her patients, “look, the last thing you want to find is that in 15 years time …”

She works at various leading hospitals, such as Chulalongkorn, BNH, and Samitivej. She knows it’s not just the doctors’ fees you've got to worry about, there’s also the cost of equipment and the drugs that go with it, and she can see that the costs just continue to rise.

Her doctor’s fee hasn’t gone up dramatically, but she’s saying to her patients, “look what you need is medical insurance that ‘fills in the gaps’ ”. So “you pay the first 30,000 baht of any bill, but if it gets very expensive,” three or four million (baht), for example, “this insurance policy will pay it out”.

That’s where the market’s changing. Thais who’ve been educated overseas or have been correctly advised by international or Thai doctors to buy this product – out of 20 enquiries we get every week from our Bangkok Post ad, five or six of them will be from Thais. And we’ll probably confirm up to 60% of them.

TAT: And do the insurers pay out properly, if you don’t mind me asking?

JK: Well, just in the last couple of years, we’ve had two major claims for operations and healthcare to the tune of 8.6 million baht and 6.2 million baht and both have been paid out fully so that’s just not an issue.

TAT: Could our readers count on good service from Lawton Asia’s local (Thai) staff?

JK: Absolutely, we pride ourselves on providing a high level of support for Thai nationals.

TAT: Thank you for taking time out from your busy schedule to talk to us.

JK: Your welcome.

For further information about Lawton Asia's products and services, visit the company's online presences at http://www.lawtonasia.com. For enquiries about the Premier range of healthcare plans, call the company's Premier hotline on Tel: +66 (0)2 654 1170.