- Published 2026.11.05 06:00
Headcount plunges from 1,715 at end-2023 to 788 in under three years
Move part of role-sharing among subsidiaries centered on corporate and reinsurance
Revenue falls but cumulative Q3 net profit hits 54 billion dong
BSH (Saigon-Hanoi Insurance), a Vietnamese non-life insurer acquired by DB Insurance, has slashed its workforce by more than half since the takeover. The move is part of organizational streamlining under role-sharing among the Korean insurer's Vietnamese subsidiaries, and it has succeeded in turning a profit by prioritizing profitability over scale.
According to BSH's third-quarter 2026 earnings report released on Nov. 4, the insurer's total headcount stood at 788 as of the end of September. That is down 927 employees, or 54%, from 1,715 at the end of 2023, before the DB Insurance acquisition, in less than three years. The figure also fell about 39% in just nine months from 1,293 at the end of last year.
The large-scale workforce reduction is tied to DB Insurance's restructuring of its Vietnamese operations. DB Insurance began with PTI (37.32% stake), the third-largest player in Vietnam, in 2015, and then acquired VNI (75%) and BSH (75%) in 2023 and 2024, respectively, giving it three non-life insurers in the country.
DB Insurance has recently been accelerating role-sharing among its subsidiaries by adjusting overlapping businesses. While other subsidiaries mainly handle face-to-face sales, BSH is reorganizing its business around corporate, online and reinsurance lines. To that end, BSH has shut down 31 of its 54 existing regional sales organizations this year alone, sharply reducing its face-to-face sales network.
The restructuring has shrunk the top line but significantly improved profitability. BSH's cumulative net premium revenue for the first three quarters of this year fell 14% year on year to 1.738 trillion dong (about 95.59 billion won). In contrast, cumulative after-tax net profit for the same period came to 54 billion dong (about 2.97 billion won), swinging from a loss of 14 billion dong (about 770 million won) a year earlier.
The turnaround is also clear in quarterly figures. BSH's insurance operating revenue in the third quarter fell 12% year on year to 549 billion dong (about 30.19 billion won), but its gross insurance operating profit jumped nearly eightfold to 125 billion dong (about 6.87 billion won) from 16 billion dong (about 880 million won) a year earlier. Third-quarter after-tax net profit also came to 12 billion dong (about 660 million won), swinging from a loss of 29 billion dong (about 1.59 billion won) a year earlier.
In a document explaining its results, BSH said, "Premium income decreased as we implemented a new management strategy that changed the organizational structure and selected services with a focus on profitability." It added, "Unlike the third quarter of last year, when compensation costs surged due to natural disasters, results improved this year as the scale of disasters was smaller."
Founded in 2008 under Vietnam's T&T Group, BSH ranked ninth in the local non-life insurance market as of 2022. DB Insurance signed a deal to acquire a 75% stake in BSH in June 2023 and completed the stake transfer in February this year for about 1.628 trillion dong (about 89.5 billion won).
※ This article is an AI translation of the Korean original published by Korea Credit News; it was checked by automated quality guards and published by the English edition desk.
