The 8th Asia Insurance Industry Awards

Saturday, 20th November 2004
Shangri-la Hotel - Grand Ballroom Bangkok, Thailand
The Asia Insurance Review

The much-awaited 8th Asia Insurance Industry Awards Gala Dinner, held in conjunction with the 22nd East Asian Insurance Congress (EAIC), generated much excitement during the weekend after Asia's finest were finally announced following a three-month wait. Close to 600 guests attended the Awards Dinner where winners were honoured for their display of excellence in the industry.

PanGlobal Online, defeated dozens of other Insurance websites from Japan, Korea, Taiwan, Australia and the rest of the ASEAN region to be in the Top 3 of the Insurance Website Of The Year category.

The competition this year was indeed intense. With dynamic growth in the market and the series of good news in the air, there was no dearth of excellent-quality nominations. We (The Asia Insurance Review - Organizer) we inundated with several exceedingly high-quality entries from both the local players, as well as the foreign companies operating in the region. The most entries came from India and Taiwan, and the life companies were the most active with an improvement seen in the number of general insurers taking part as well. Pleasingly, the most nominations received were for Innovations of the Year and for Educational Service Provider of the Year.

The selection process from the 500-odd nominations was no simple task for the panel of 21 judges. We were honoured to have them so ably chaired this year by Ms Potjanee Thanavaranit, the Insurance Commissioner of Thailand.

This year we changed the process to have two rounds of judging. At the first round, the top three finalists were collated based on the ranking made by the judges individually through mail. At the actual judging itself, the judges re-ranked the top three finalists and the scores were collated to select the winner with the best score in each category.

As a reference, the judges were given the rating information made by Standard & Poor's, where relevant, as well as the write-up by each candidate on the extent to which they had met the criteria for the category and why they deserved to win. The panel had to work diligently and were most scrupulous about avoiding conflicts of interest, as well as making the right choices. The judges' scores were audited by Mr. Paul Barley of KPMG.

It is heartening to note that the Asia Insurance Industry Awards have, over the years, come to be recognised as an important trophy to be sought after. The responsibility is on the winners to live up to the standards set, and let their torch of excellence lead the way in their respective markets.

The Organizer would like to take this opportunity to extend our heartiest congratulations to the winners and exhort them to greater heights, and to thank all the nominees who had taken the awards seriously and pitted their excellent efforts against the best the market has to offer.