Aaron Le Marquer, a consultant and insurance specialist at Tilleke & Gibbins, has been interviewed by Asia Insurance Intelligence magazine for his views on the current state of the Thai insurance market.

Commenting on the Thai insurance industry regulator, the Office of Insurance Commission (OIC), Aaron said that a particular focus of the OIC in recent years has been to try to ensure better capital adequacy. “In 2013, that meant the introduction of risk-based capital requirements whereas previously there had been flat capital requirements,” he said.

Aaron continues, saying that over the next two years, there will be new stress test requirements requiring insurance companies to demonstrate how they would perform financially under certain specified conditions and scenarios. This, he says, is the OIC “requiring local market players to become much more sophisticated in terms of their financial management.” What is the effect of this? According to Aaron, “The effect of that is that there will be more market consolidation and a lot more opportunity for foreign investment as the local players are not necessarily properly capitalized or equipped.”

Asia Insurance Intelligence, published by Pageant Media, is a print publication for the Asia insurance market. If you would like to read the full overview of the Thai insurance market, please download the PDF below.