Top 15 life insurance executives: David Chua, Allen Kuo, Joseph Wang
AsianInvestor’s Top 15 Life Insurance Executives in Asia list highlights the individuals who stand out in driving the industry forward via steady investment processes, robust operations, sustainability measures, as well as advocacy for best practices and transparency.
The life insurance sector in the region has been growing rapidly, helped by a population of over four billion and rapidly growing economic clout.
Despite the immense potential, there are also challenges such as wide-ranging regulatory changes, slowing growth in life premiums in recent years and increasing demands for actions around sustainability and climate change, among others.
We believe it is important to recognise and credit the standout individuals who are making a difference and setting positive trends in such an important sector.
Read more about the rationale for our Top 15 list.
Today, we conclude our list by profiling three senior executives, two based in Singaore and one in Taiwan.
David Chua
Chief Investment Officer, Income Insurance
David Chua is a well-recognised name in Singapore’s insurance industry. He is particularly known for sharp insights from his regular appearances at industry events, and eloquently communicating various investment points of view.
As a composite insurer, Income Insurance has been focusing strongly on sustainability in recent years, under Chua’s leadership.
Established in 1970 to plug a social need for insurance, Income Insurance, formerly known as NTUC Income, went from being a cooperative to a corporation in September 2022.
It was the object of a takeover proposal by German giant Allianz earlier this year, although in October, the Singapore government announced it had blocked the deal.
The insurer, which has about $32.5 billion in AUM, has always possessed a strong streak of social responsibility.
It made a recent commitment to invest up to $760 million (S$1 billion) in climate transition financing, among other initiatives.
It is also working with external fund managers to reduce greenhouse gas emissions of its public assets portfolio and mapping out a 3-year electric vehicles roadmap to accelerate electrification of vehicles in Singapore.
“Sustainability is a journey for us,” Chua told AsianInvestor, noting that the "S$1billion commitment is one of many different things we are doing within that journey.”
“We see ourselves as playing a key fiduciary role as an asset owner to help the progress of climate transition financing, not just in Asia but also across the globe,” he said.
Chua said the insurer has a multi-pronged approach to sustainable investing.
The first component is understanding how climate risks affect portfolios and conducting different stress test scenarios using different climate conditions.
The second component involves taking action.
“We don’t want to just put up numbers without creating and generating real world change.”
The third component is influence.
“We recognise that we can’t be doing all this by ourselves.
"We are part of the broader ecosystem, so we consider the broader financial ecosystem including our partners such as fund managers, industry associations and vendors,” he said.
While the $760 million plan is clearly around new investments, the insurer has another $31.7 billion in its existing portfolio to manage in terms of climate transition and resilience.
“In terms of the existing portfolio, there is a two-fold approach – one is engagement,” noted Chua. The other aspect is integrating sustainability considerations into the portfolio.
“One of the ways this can be seen is in our strategic asset allocation. Asset allocation for us is very much a forward-looking view with regards to the risk and returns context,” he said.
While not easy, Income Insurance tries to incorporate the impact of climate changes into its return assumptions, using what the portfolio used to achieve in the past.
“For instance, if we assume 8-9% in returns for equities, how will (transition and physical risks) potentially add to the cost of businesses and how would that affect their profitability?”
Chua's leadership in ensuring Income Insurance's clear-minded focus on sustainability is one of the top reasons why this Singapore-based CIO earned a well-deserved spot on our Top 15 list.
Allen Kuo
Chief Investment Officer, Singlife
Allen Kuo was named chief investment officer of Singlife in early 2024, after Kim Rosenkilde stepped down and is an executive we believe is definitely 'one to watch.’
Kuo joined the insurer in August 2022 after an extensive career that included being one of the original architects of BlackRock's famous technology platform Aladdin.
Singlife was the first local insurer to be licensed in 2017 by the Monetary Authority of Singapore since 1970. It acquired the business portfolio of Zurich Life in 2018 and merged with Aviva Singapore in 2020.
It became a fully-owned subsidiary of Japan’s Sumitomo Life in 2024.
The Aviva merger, in particular, brought in two significant changes: the development of Singlife’s own investment model, with the management of assets moving in-house (versus the previous outsourced CIO model), and a focus on sustainable investing, Kuo told AsianInvestor.
The bulk of investment assets at Singlife were previously managed by an investment management affiliate of Aviva Insurance.
“By bringing assets in-house to Singlife, this brings tighter integration with the insurance company for improved asset-liability management,” he said.
The insurer had about $8.5 billion in AUM at the end of 2023.
He also emphasised the focus on asset-liability management because “it is the net of assets minus liabilities – the surplus – that really determines the long-term health of a participating fund [fund that allow investors to share in the profits made by the insurer].”
“A high headline return on par fund assets does not actually mean much if liabilities are increasing faster than asset returns.
“So optimal asset-liability management is really the objective, and not simply a focus on investment returns,” Kuo said.
A related idea is an increased focus on managing costs.
Management fees charged for active management of assets in the participating fund can be considered ‘negative alpha’, Kuo noted.
“Singlife, in our fiduciary role, must ensure all management fees are commensurate with the returns that external managers generate relative to the risk that managers take,” he said.
“By focusing on costs versus risk adjusted return, we implicitly set a very high bar on active management.”
In terms of sustainability, apart from considering carbon emissions from portfolio companies, it also directly finances decarbonisation solutions around the world, such as direct investments in renewable energy projects, such as solar and wind power plants.
Singlife has a relatively smaller investments team compared to other insurance investment offices in Singapore, and the team is mostly made up of staff from outside of the insurance industry, such as from asset management, hedge funds and banks.
“What excites me most about the job is the ability to take the building blocks we have, and put them together to form high-level strategies that play to our strengths, as well as introduce new ways of doing things within a traditional insurance company,” Kuo said.
“We are seeing some of the fruits of the strategy begin to play out, e.g. the ability to act and invest quickly as capital market opportunities present themselves”.
Joseph Wang
Senior Executive Vice President, Cathay Life Insurance
Joseph Wang is the head of Cathay Life’s investment-related departments and is also the chairman of its investment arm, Cathay Securities Investment Consulting.
Cathay Life, one of Taiwan’s largest asset owners, has a globally diversified investment portfolio.
“Over the years, Cathay Life has adhered to a prudent and pragmatic operating style. With our rich investment management experience, as well as stable and rigorous asset liability management (ALM) and risk control capabilities, our investment footprint is across the globe,” Wang told AsianInvestor.
Since 2019, Cathay Life has averaged a stable annual investment return of around 4%, with a slight dip to 3.3% in 2023.
In the first half of 2024, the insurer posted a 4.3% return on its investment portfolio.
Cathay Life has been a pioneer in green finance and sustainable investment in Asia and can be credited with helping to bring global best practices to Taiwan.
As an export-oriented economy, Taiwan’s manufacturing industry is deeply intertwined with the decarbonisation of the global supply chain, especially when it comes to its trade relations with European countries.
Cathay Life started following the United Nations’ Principles for Responsible Investment (PRI) in 2015 and set up a responsible investment working group in 2016 – making it among the first asset owners in Asia to have a dedicated responsible investment team.
The team was jointly established by the insurer's front, middle and back offices, while a senior executive of the equity investment department was appointed team leader.
In 2022, Cathay Life established a dedicated responsible investment planning unit, which set up yearly implementation plans for sustainable investment projects.
Now the insurer has four dedicated responsible investment specialists.
To ensure responsible investment principles cover all asset classes, Cathay Life has formulated ESG methods based on the attributes of different assets, while improving the assessment of ESG performance of investee companies.
Having committed to net zero by 2050, Cathay Life is also the first in Taiwan to implement Science Based Targets initiative (SBTi)-validated decarbonisation targets for its investment portfolio.
In the past two years, the SBTi investment goals have been achieved ahead of schedule, according to Wang.
By the end of 2023, its low-carbon investments reached NT$241 billion ($7.5 billion).
Taiwan’s insurance industry is also preparing for the new international accounting standard IFRS 17, as well as the new solvency regime Taiwan-localised Insurance Capital Standard (TW-ICS) coming up in January 2026, which requires mark-to-market valuation for both assets and liabilities.
“Although regulatory changes have brought challenges to the insurance industry, they are also providing industry players with new opportunities for transformation” Wang said.
“They must not only actively optimise operational processes, but also attach more importance to ALM and risk capital management. The improvement and optimisation of various internal management are expected to strengthen the industry and upgrade capabilities,” he said.
This concludes our Top 15 list. Thank you for reading.