two tales of two largest S'pore insurance entities

In one corner, we have a report by Magdalen Ng on Great Eastern on Feb 15's ST. In the other corner, I read a report by Christopher Tan on NTUC Income on Feb 17's ST.

To Magdalen, Singapore's largest insurer is Great Eastern. Whereas Christopher reported NTUC Income as the largest composite insurer (ie. offering both life and general insurance) in Singapore.

Magdalen's article carried a headline with a negative tune and focused on the double digit drop in Q4's net profit and consequent 24% decline in full year profit to $385.7m. Magdalen did not report on GE's overall sales turnover. Christopher's headline is positive and focused on the record turnover of $4.2b achieved. Christopher did not report on current profit achieved but gave an indication on its profitability by telling us about the $200m profit secured last year.

Magdalen reported on factors contributing to the decline in profit. Terminologies used - "weak investment climate", "unrealised mark-to-market losses" etc. Both GE's Chief Executive and Chief Financial Officer tried to tell us that there is light at the end of tunnel in the form of "resilient performance despite...", "operating and financial discipline", "ride volatility", "total weighted new sales.. improved 10%".

As Christopher may understand that profitability is not the utmost priority to a cooperative and that as a NTUC cooperative it must make an impact to society, his piece focused on the transformation achieved by the new Tan Suee Chieh after taking over from the old Tan Kin Lian. Premiums collected doubled to $4.2b over 5 years. Profit increased form $96m in 2006 to $200m last year. Rebates of $4.2m to be returned to policyholders.

Despite all of the above, there is definitely a lot of monies involved in the insurance industry in Singapore as represented by these two insurers.