The above information was shared by Finance Minister Ho Duc Phoc in the context of the insurance market having just experienced a "crisis of trust".

The insurance industry has been developing for more than 25 years in Vietnam and has recorded an average growth rate of 20% per year. This is a sector that the Minister assessed as playing the role of a "midwife", contributing to the stable development of other sectors in the economy, and at the same time being a solution to protect people's finances.

Overall, Mr. Phuc said that the quality of insurance agents has improved over the years. Businesses have invested in agent training, information technology, and improved service quality and customer care.

However, according to him, it cannot be denied that some insurance agents operate with low quality. "Many businesses in fact only focus on training agents in the direction of how to sell products. That means they are biased in training sales skills rather than basic economic knowledge, insurance expertise, as well as professional ethics," the Minister assessed.

According to Mr. Phuc, some businesses focus more on revenue and profits earned by agents, neglecting to control and monitor the activities, quality of advice, and customer care of agents. This leads to some insurance agents not meeting standards, not providing complete and objective advice, especially on investment-linked insurance products. On the other hand, many customers do not pay attention to research thoroughly, and are gullible and considerate when signing insurance contracts.

The Minister said that this is the cause of the recent public outrage, reducing the role, true nature and humanity of insurance. "The market needs to change dramatically," said Mr. Phoc.

Accordingly, businesses must raise awareness, review, and find solutions to improve the quality of agents. "We will rectify and strictly handle insurance companies that commit violations," Finance Minister Ho Duc Phoc affirmed.

In recent times, the insurance distribution channel through banks (bancassurance) has increasingly contributed to the market, in addition to traditional agents. Bancassurance helps diversify insurance exploitation activities, but the leaders of the Ministry of Finance admitted that it has created more complexity in recent times. The insurance industry must review and rectify to operate healthily and in the right direction.

Regarding the bancassurance channel, he said that specialized management agencies have also seen the arising problems and urgently stepped in to make changes. The Ministry of Finance and the State Bank have also worked many times and issued documents to discipline commercial banks and insurance companies to strictly comply, prohibiting acts of solicitation, enticement, and inadequate consultation.

The Minister said that many new regulations on insurance agents, including bancassurance, have been specified in a stricter and more complete manner in the draft documents guiding the revised Law on Insurance Business. The Ministry of Finance has submitted them to the Government and expects them to be issued soon to rectify operations and improve quality in the direction of protecting customers' rights.

According to the Minister of Finance, the insurance market still has many challenges that need to be improved in terms of human resource quality, database, information technology application, risk management enhancement and transparency of enterprises. In the coming years, in addition to fundamental factors such as economic growth, population size, and technology development trends, the legal foundation is expected to contribute to supporting the insurance market to develop further in both "quantity" and "quality".

Quynh Trang