Thai insurers miss growth opportunity from concert goers

This is why Thai Setakij Insurance is looking beyond the standard travel-insurance model.

Thailand’s non-life insurers are facing a distribution problem as young customers lean toward digital platforms, which could dampen industry growth.

In a fireside chat with Tim Charlton, publisher, Thai Setakij Insurance Public Company Limited’s managing director Ben Assanasen said the key to embedded insurance is not simply adding insurance to a checkout page. 

The offer has to fit the primary purchase and be easy to buy. “It’s really got to be a complementary product, as well as it’s got to be embedded into the sales process of your partner too,” Assanasen said during a fireside chat in the Asian Banking and Finance and Insurance Asia Summit in Thailand today.

That view explains why Thai Setakij is looking beyond the standard travel insurance model. 

But Assanasen said the same logic works for concerts, events and running races. 

Through ticketing platforms such as Thai Ticket Major, the company offers ticket-refund insurance that pays back a customer who cannot attend because of an accident, sickness or work-related reasons.

The model can scale quickly when the partner has high-volume digital traffic. 

Assanasen said the company had seen large-volume sales linked to major concerts and added that the operating requirement is significant: “You have to be able to issue policies, let’s say, 50,000 in 10 minutes, digitally, electronically, and process that in your back-end systems too.”

Thailand had 67.8 million internet users at end-2025, equal to 94.7% internet penetration, and 96.6 million active cellular mobile connections, according to DataReportal’s Digital 2026 Thailand report. 

LINE also had 56 million monthly active users in Thailand in late 2025, showing why platform-based distribution has become a serious insurance channel rather than a side experiment.

The broader market is also still expanding. Thailand’s non-life direct premium rose 3% year on year to $4.52b (THB145.7b) in the first half of 2025, with health up 24%, personal accident up 3%, fire up 3% and motor up 2%, according to Milliman’s October 2025 Thailand non-life update.

That growth gives insurers room to test new distribution economics, especially in products that can be automated and sold at low unit cost.

Assanasen was clear that pricing discipline matters. Customers are not entering a ticketing or travel site to buy insurance, so the premium has to feel proportionate to the underlying transaction. 

“What we found is that around 3% to 5% of whatever the ticket price is no more than 10%,” he said.  Above that level, the customer starts to question the add-on.

This makes embedded insurance different from traditional branch, agency or bancassurance sales. 

The premium may be small, but the customer-acquisition value can be material.

“The value of it is not just the actual premium, but actually getting the customer base,” Assanasen said. 

He noted that customers reached through embedded products tend to be younger than those acquired through conventional channels, creating potential for later cross-selling into personal accident, travel, motor, home and fire insurance.

That strategy depends on data-sharing arrangements with partners. 

Assanasen said Thai Setakij tries to obtain email addresses where possible, but some partners prefer to retain customer data and support cross-selling through their own platforms. 

“Of course, every time you sell a policy, you get certain customer data,” he said. “The key message here is you have a very strong relationship with your partner,”

Financial services could be another distribution path. 

The Bank of Thailand announced in June 2025 three successful applicants to establish virtual banks, with the aim of serving retail and SME customers, particularly unserved and underserved segments, through digital channels.