INSURANCE sales are seen hitting P300 billion this year as the market further expands and attracts more foreign players.
Insurance Commissioner Emmanuel F. Dooc told reporters last week the insurance penetration rate or the share of insurance sales to the gross domestic product likely reached 2 percent as of end-2015, although still lower than the Asean average of 3 percent. The IC is targeting to hit the penetration rate of 3 percent in 2019, the same year that total premiums are expected to breach P500 billion.
Dooc also said Filipinos covered by insurance likely rose to 38 million as of the end of last year, of which about 30 million bought microinsurance products.
“We’ll likely have 45 percent of the population covered by insurance by the end of 2016,” he said.
With more Filipinos buying insurance, the industry’s sales could exceed last year’s record-high total premiums worth P233-234 billion.
The combined premium income of the life and nonlife insurance sectors as well as mutual benefit associations (MBAs) last year climbed 18.2 percent from the P197.2 billion posted in 2014.
“Premium production had averaged P58 billion per quarter. We need to generate P75 billion [per quarter to hit P300 billion], but it seems achievable,” Dooc said.
He disclosed up to four foreign insurance firms were eyeing entry to the Philippines this year—one European, one Japanese that could possibly be Dai-ichi Life Insurance Co.), and two Taiwanese companies including Shin Kong Life Insurance Co.
He said the interested companies were “likely to hit the ground running because they would like to take advantage of the current climate where there is huge potential for growth.”
Preliminary Insurance Commission (IC) data showed the life insurance sector’s premium income grew 18.8 percent to P188.5 billion in 2015 from P158.7 billion in 2014.
The nonlife sector’s net premiums, meanwhile, rose 16.2 percent to P37.3 billion last year from P32.1 billion in 2014.
On the other hand, the MBAs’ sales in 2015 increased by 12.5 percent to P7.2 billion compared with the previous year’s P6.4 billion.
Dooc noted the industry was able to achieve the commission’s earlier projection of P230-240 billion in premium income for 2015.