As part of Bank Negara Malaysia’s (BNM) ongoing efforts to ensure that all Insurance and Takaful industry players uphold their commitments and deliver services as outlined in their Customer Service Charter (CSC), both BNM and the Boards and Management Committees of the Associations (MTA/LIAM/PIAM) have approved the appointment of NielsenIQ Malaysia as the research agency to conduct the Customer Satisfaction Survey (CSS) 2024/25. Please visit our Announcement page for more information. 

About Great Eastern Malaysia

An introduction to the history, products and current operations of Great Eastern Life Assurance (Malaysia) Berhad (GELM)

Great Eastern Life began its operations in 1908 as a branch office of The Great Eastern Life Assurance Company Limited. The Malaysian operations were subsequently transferred to a locally incorporated public company, GELM under the Scheme of Transfer of Business. The Company was certified by The Malaysia Book of Records in 1998 as “The Oldest and Largest Life Insurer” in Malaysia.

With more than a century of experience and solid financial foundation, GELM has more than RM91 billion in assets, over 4.0 million policies in force, and a network of close to 22,000 agents nationwide as at 31 December 2023. To date, GELM has 21 branches nationwide and products including life insurance plans, investment-linked plans, mortgage protection, business protection, employee benefits, medical insurance and group health benefit schemes. GELM is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Great Eastern Holdings Limited (GEH) and its ultimate holding company is Oversea-Chinese Banking Corporation (OCBC) Limited.

As the oldest and most established life insurer in Malaysia, we continue to set new standards as an innovative industry leader. We have provided generations of Malaysians with innovative financial solutions to protect them against the unexpected throughout different stages of their lives. This is complemented by our expanding suite of health protection products to help our customers better manage the economic implications of escalating medical costs.

Over the years, we have won many prestigious accolades in affirmation of our industry leadership. In 2024, GELM made history by becoming the only life insurance company to be conferred the prestigious Reader’s Digest Trusted Brand Gold Award in the Life Insurance category for the 21 consecutive years. Additionally, GELM bagged Gold in the category of Health Insurance for the 7th consecutive year.

The company won The BrandLaureate BestBrands Awards 2023-2024, Nation’s Choice in the category of Insurance, signifying our exceptional brand reputation and strong customer loyalty. For the past 3 years, Great Eastern has been recognised as the Brand of the Year at The BrandLaureate BestBrands Awards, an accolade that honours the company that sets the standard for excellence in the insurance industry. The company was also awarded Top Brand in Putra Brand Awards' Banking, Investment, & Insurance category for three consecutive years amongst many other awards.

Delighting the customers

The company believes that a long-term partnership begins with great customer service. In its aspiration to be the choice financial services provider, GELM continually develops innovative and consumer-centric financial planning products.

GELM offers flexible and affordable group health benefits and protection schemes to both the corporate and public sector's employees and their families.

On the business front, GELM continues to explore and tap potential markets through alternative distribution channels, as well as in the retirement benefits and medical health segments.

Constant improvements are made to the workflow processes, with a focus on quality customer service. The road to excellence is never-ending. We will continue to deliver great customer service experience to our policyholders.

Delivering greater value with information technology

GELM continues to forge ahead through greater use of leading-edge technologies to modernise its IT infrastructure and systems capabilities. This will further improve and enhance our various business processes in delivering greater value and better user experiences to our customers and agents.

One of the key transformation programmes undertaken by GELM recently was to revamp the customer portal with the new Unified Internet Portal (called e-Connect), powered by a 360° customer view (Master CIF) and Transaction Data Store. This particular transformation programme successfully clinched the IDC’s 2017 Financial Insights Innovation Awards (under the Asia/Pacific’s Leader in Insurance Enterprise Transformation category), which was held in Singapore. With this highly intuitive customer portal, the e-Connect, GELM customers can access their policy account online. Direct channel insurance products can also be purchased through this platform.

As a LIFE company, GELM champions every effort to empower our agents to serve our customers better. That is why we are the first life insurer in Malaysia to launch the Mobile Point-of-Sales (MPOS) platform that provides a seamless end-to-end user experience with secured online real-time electronic payment, in collaboration with OCBC Bank. MPOS is an Apple iPad application for agents to manage customer profiles, conduct fact finding, sales illustrations, finally electronically signed and submission of insurance proposals to GELM. Given the successful track record of being the first life insurer to achieve 100% electronic submission of insurance proposals in 2010, we are confident to achieve the same success with this new MPOS platform. Amongst various collaborative tools, agents are also given online access to the agency portal (e-Partner), which connects agents to the information resources and tools needed to run their business effectively.

GELM has also adopted cutting edge training technology in developing a powerful Learning Access Management Platform (LAMP) by commissioning a world-class learning management system provider from the United States. The LAMP system has the capability to provide online registration for training courses, capture training history and records of agents, and act as a platform that enables e-learning and interactive forums for pre and post training discussions. It enhances virtual learning among agents who are located in different towns nationwide as training in Kuala Lumpur can be telecasted live to them, enabling real-time information sharing. Agents throughout Malaysia are also able to access the system through web and mobile devices.

The continual pursuit in rolling out innovative solutions attests to GELM's commitment to invest in relevant technologies to make life great for our customers, agents and staff.

Sharing with the community

Great Eastern Cares

As the Life Company, Great Eastern strives to be a good corporate citizen in the communities where it operates. We take pride in living our values of Initiative, Integrity and Involvement, as we support meaningful social and charitable causes through our corporate employees and financial representatives.

Through Great Eastern Cares, our corporate social responsibility efforts centre on helping the underprivileged across different life stages ranging from children to youths and seniors, from low-income families and other disadvantaged communities. We aim to be force for good and enable communities to Reach for A Greater Tomorrow by actively seeking out opportunities and partnerships that can uplift communities.

Across the Group, we have pushed out Great Eastern Cares programmes in four focus areas include improving financial literacy, making insurance accessible, enhancing quality of lives and protecting the environment.

Under the enhance quality of lives and protecting the environment, Great Eastern Cares organised a food waste management activity by rescuing surplus quality and nutritious produce from going to the landfill and redistributing to the vulnerable communities.

Through this initiative, we have successfully rescued 7,585 kg of surplus food, produced 526 kg organic compost 18,963 kg of carbon dioxide (CO2) greenhouse gas emission, provided 21,671 kg meals to 52 beneficiaries which include underprivileged homes under the purview of Jabatan Kebajikan Masyarakat (JKM) and low-income families in Malaysia’s Program Perumahan Rakyat (PPR).

Great Eastern Life Malaysia - Great Eastern Cares
Great Eastern Life Malaysia - Great Eastern Cares

 

Financial literacy is an essential life skill that empowers one to make informed decisions about money and optimise the dollar value. Our efforts in this area range from partnerships with like-minded organisations to customising content for outreach.

We organised the Financial Literacy Programme at national schools in collaboration with Financial Industry Collective Outreach (FINCO), a non-profit organisation set up by Bank Negara Malaysia. We have also welcomed university students for industrial visits to Great Eastern Life Malaysia and emphasizing the importance of financial literacy in navigating the complexities of the modern economy.
Through these initiatives, we have reached out to more than 500 students.

Great Eastern Life Malaysia - Fin Lit Programme
Great Eastern Life Malaysia - Fin Lit Programme

 

ChildrenCare

Launched in 1995, GELM ChildrenCare is a long term community project benefitting over 10,000 Malaysian children in registered children homes under Jabatan Kebajikan Masyarakat. ChildrenCare aims to inspire underprivileged children to discover their potential in life under the three core pillars of Education, Health and Wellness, and Personal Development.

 In 2014, ChildrenCare launched Program Aspirasi Gemilang ‘A’ which is an initiative under the Education pillar. The programme aims to help underprivileged children perform better in their public examinations through educational aids and a series of workshops carried out throughout the year. Subsequently, ChildrenCare kicked off new programmes under the Health and Wellness, and Personal Development pillars in 2015.

 Besides channelling donations to various charities and homes, many interesting activities are organised to bring cheer to the underprivileged children throughout the year, including ChildrenCare Annual Youth Camps, Legal Awareness Camp, Children's Art Therapy sessions, Sustainable Urban Hijau Workshop, Sunny Syawal Soap Making Workshop, Diya Lamp Workshop and Chocolate Making Workshop.

Great Eastern Life Malaysia - ChildrenCare
Great Eastern Life Malaysia - ChildrenCare

 

Great Eastern Supremacy Scholarship Awards

The company's noteworthy education and human capital development project is the Great Eastern Supremacy Scholarship Awards for deserving students to pursue their tertiary education locally and overseas. Over RM13 million worth of scholarships have been awarded to 213 recipients to complete their studies since its inception in 1998.

 

An introduction to the history, products and current operations of Great Eastern General Insurance (Malaysia) Berhad
(Formerly known as Overseas Assurance Corporation (Malaysia) Berhad)

Great Eastern General Insurance (Malaysia) Berhad (GEGM) started operations in Kuala Lumpur in 1954 as a branch of the Great Eastern General Insurance Limited, Singapore (GEGS), formerly known as Overseas Assurance Corporation Limited. GEGM’s early focus was in general insurance but it expanded its life insurance business in 1963, making it one of the earliest composite insurer in Malaysia.

In 1998, the branch operations were restructured to become a locally incorporated subsidiary of GEGS to comply with the requirements of the Malaysian Insurance Act 1996. By 2000, GEGM was one of the largest providers of life, health and general insurance in Malaysia, serving a customer base of more than 500,000 policy owners with total assets exceeding RM2.5 billion. With the merger of GEGS and GEH in December 2000, GEGM's life insurance business was transferred to GELM in September 2001. Arising from this development, GEGM is now a pure general insurance operator that spearheads the Great Eastern Group’s development and expansion in the general insurance sector.

GEGM had officially acquired the general insurance business of Tahan Insurance Malaysia Berhad (Tahan) with effect from 1 January 2011. Following the acquisition, Tahan’s entire general insurance business was transferred to GEGM.

As at 31 December 2020, GEGM has total assets in excess of RM 1,233 million with a paid-up capital of RM 100 million and a network of 13 branches with more than 3,000 agents.

Building confidence and trust

At GEGM, building confidence and trust has always been the core. We put customers first by treating them as partners, fostering trust and respect through our unwavering commitment and uncompromising quality of service.

We have a proven track record of building confidence and trust that can be traced back to our humble beginnings more than 60 years ago. We have solid and lasting partnerships with some of the biggest names in Malaysian business, who bank on our comprehensive range of general insurance products and excellent customer service.

Trust comes with confidence. Our clients enjoy this confidence through our established corporate reputation and our affiliations with the Great Eastern and OCBC Group (Group). With the legacy of integrity and professionalism, as well as the financial security and stability of the Group, GEGM is well positioned to continue its growth and expansion in years to come.