June 07, Colombo: AIA Insurance recently commemorated the one-year anniversary of its women’s program, ‘Aya Surakina AIA’ , in partnership with IFC-DFAT Women in Work program, with an evening of celebration.

With patronage of Damayanthi Fernando Director General Insurance Regulatory Commission of Sri Lanka (IRCSL), Chathuri Munaweera Chief Executive Officer (CEO) AIA Insurance and Victor Antonypillai Senior Country Officer for Sri Lanka and Maldives International Finance Corporation (IFC) and Sarah Twigg Manager for IFC Women in Work program, the event brought together key professionals from AIA, IFC, Commercial Bank of Ceylon, and Women’s Chamber of Industry and Commerce (WCIC) to recognize the program’s achievements and contributions towards empowering women across the country.

The event kicked off with a speech from AIA’s CEO Chathuri Munaweera, who highlighted the program’s key achievements and shared the company’s vision for the future of ‘Aya Surakina AIA’ , which is to positively engage 2,000,000 women across Sri Lanka by 2025 - which falls within AIA’s overall goal of One Billion Healthier Longer, Better lives across Asia by 2030. The celebration was followed by a cocktail reception, where guests had the opportunity to connect and network with fellow professionals.

As part of the IFC-DFAT Women in Work program, the ‘Aya Surakina AIA’ , a dedicated women’s insurance program was launched last year to offer insurance solutions, financial literacy training, networks, recognition, and access to information for Sri Lankan women. This program was launched based on the findings from extensive research on women and insurance in Sri Lanka as part of the IFC-AIA partnership in 2020.

According to IFC’s SheforShield report, the women’s market represents a $1.7 trillion opportunity for the insurance industry globally by 2030. Over half of this growth is expected from emerging markets such as Sri Lanka.

Speaking at the event, Victor Antonypillai, Senior Country Officer for IFC in Sri Lanka and Maldives said, “given the current low insurance penetration in Sri Lanka, targeting women, and addressing their protection can help insurers achieve greater heights. IFC’s work with AIA on ‘ඇය සුරකින AIA’ will help achieve just that by supporting and empowering Sri Lankan women as customers, agents, and employees.”

‘Aya Surakina AIA’s achievements in promoting gender equality, creating more opportunities for women, and fostering an inclusive workplace culture are a testament to AIA’s unwavering commitment to building a better future for all. The program is committed to supporting women across the country in achieving their full potential personally and professionally through learning, recruitment, networking, and protection.

Since its launch last year, AIA has reached over 500,000 women through several targeted initiatives across different strategic pillars to empower women internally and externally. These initiatives include rolling out IFC developed Gender Sensitivity Training (GST) program and including it to its sales training modules to ensure Wealth Planners are able to better engage and increase their responsiveness to the needs of women customers, recruiting a gender-balanced workforce, partnering with WCIC to engage and empower more women, launching a women-specific product ‘She Protect’ and AIA’s special insurance plan to ComBank’s Anagi customers helped expand its customer base and increase women customer numbers.

These initiatives reflect AIA’s unwavering commitment to empowering women and building a more inclusive and gender-equal society.

On the occasion of ‘ඇය සුරකින AIA’s first anniversary, AIA reaffirms its commitment to empowering women and building a better future for all. AIA is proud to celebrate the success of ‘ඇය සුරකින AIA’ and looks forward to continuing its efforts to empower women in the future.