Philam Life moves to regain market share

Insurance firm Philam Life is repositioning itself to regain the market share it lost in the aftermath of the previous decade’s global financial crisis—an event that severely impacted its previous US-based parent AIG and led to a reorganization after the spin off of its Asian unit.

In a briefing, the CEO of Philam’s owner, the Hong Kong-based AIA Group, expressed optimism about the insurer’s prospects in the Philippines, given the relatively low insurance penetration in the local market.
“We have a strong distribution platform and the biggest network in terms of [insurance agents] in Asia,” group chief executive Ng Keng Hooi said. “We have a very strong brand in the Philippines having been in the market for 70 years now.”

Together, Philam Life and BPI-Philam—its bancassurance joint venture with the Bank of the Philippine Islands—control P256 billion in assets at the end of 2016, supported by a capital base of P1.39 billion.

Its insurance policies are sold over 8,000 agents, said Philam Life CEO Ariel Cantos, adding that, when taken together, the combined Philam and BPI-Philam firms made up the single biggest insurance group in the country.

Last year, both firms sold P38 billion worth of insurance premiums, he said.

Cantos acknowledged that the upheaval caused by the ownership change over the last decade, and the string of local and international leadership changes that followed, took its toll on the company’s workforce and sales performance.

He said, however, that his thrust of focusing on the welfare of his sales team, and investing in their training as well as in new facilities was meant to draw in younger clients that would help Philam penetrate the local market deeper.