Shin Chang-jae, Chairman of Kyobo Life Insurance, "Only Innovation for Survival"

Shin Chang-jae, Chairman of Kyobo Life Insurance.

Shin Chang-jae, CEO and Chairman of the Board of Kyobo Life Insurance, emphasized ‘innovation’ as the key management task for this year.

In his New Year's address on the 2nd, Chairman Shin stated, "As the life insurance market environment rapidly changes, the competitive landscape is diversifying with non-life insurance companies, General Agencies (GA), and insurance comparison platforms. To respond and survive, what is required of us is nothing but innovation."

Chairman Shin said, “First, we must identify what value customers need,” and urged, “We need to consider how to provide this through innovation and how to differentiate our products and services.” He added, “Only through innovation can we strengthen the competitiveness of the insurance business and establish a foundation for the success of new businesses.”

Regarding changes in the life insurance market environment, Chairman Shin diagnosed, “With population aging, the life insurance market is gradually shrinking, while the MZ generation (Millennials + Generation Z) and the New Silver generation are emerging as the main customer base. While demand for traditional whole life insurance is decreasing, there is growing demand for third insurance products such as health and accident insurance that provide various coverages during survival.”

Chairman Shin emphasized that in an environment where digital transformation is accelerating, ‘Open Innovation’ is important. He said, “We must utilize new ideas, products and services, and new technologies from external partners to improve customer service and business processes, thereby providing better value to customers,” and urged, “Let us strive to establish the challenging and creative culture of external startups as our company’s innovation culture.”

Chairman Shin proposed starting with small innovations, learning from rapid attempts and meaningful failures, and cultivating an innovation culture. He said, “If the innovation culture is not sufficiently activated within the company, the digital infrastructure built over the past several years could become useless,” and asked, “Team leaders should create an atmosphere where team members can challenge small innovations without fear of failure.”

Referring to the industry’s chronic practices, Chairman Shin emphasized the social responsibility of life insurance companies. He said, “Life insurance is a social and economic system that helps people facing life’s hardships with a spirit of ‘neighborly love,’ but in reality, the story of ‘neighborly love’ is being distorted into a ‘money story.’ We must take the lead in improving these industry practices and work together to ensure that life insurance operates with the spirit of neighborly love.”

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.