Life insurers push lifting of bancassurance hurdle

Life insurers are pushing for the lifting of a rule that limits bancassurance ventures within the ambit of a parent financial institution.

“The remaining regulatory restriction in bancassurance is with regard to the requirement that the bank and the insurer must belong to the same financial conglomerate. Financial conglomerate is defined as a group of entities whose exclusive or predominant activities consist of providing significant services in at least two different financial sectors (banking, securities and insurance),” Philippine Life Insurance Association president Olaf Kliesow said in a speech at last week’s 19th Asia Conference on Bancassurance and Alternative Distribution Channels.

“The industry looks forward to the lifting of this limitation soon enough so as not to be an impediment to the potential tie-ups that liberalized entry of foreign banks creates,” Kliesow said.

Kliesow said the life insurance sector had “seen first hand the value that bancassurance can provide in growing the premium generation capacity of the industry.”

For one, 12 of the 30 life insurance firms in the country were engaged in bancassurance agreements, he noted.

Also, of the top 10 universal and commercial banks last year, eight have bancassurance ventures, Kliesow added. —BEN O. DE VERA