Broker-mediated insurance premiums up 11.2% in 2017

The premium income of the insurance brokerage sector rose by over a tenth to P57.9 billion last year as it benefited from the overall growth of the insurance industry.

In a statement Monday, Insurance Commissioner Dennis B. Funa said broker-mediated premiums in 2017 grew 11.2 percent from P52.1 billion in 2016.

Last year, premiums generated from brokerage activities of 63 companies accounted for a fifth of the total P277.6 billion of the life and non-life insurance sectors.

Mediated premiums in the life sector reached P8.7 billion; from non-life, a bigger P48.4 billion.

Insurance brokerage players also gained P837.3 million in membership fees from the health maintenance organization (HMO) sector.

Funa said the top 10 insurance brokers, whose combined premiums composed 75 percent of last year’s total, were: Anchor Insurance Brokers Corp.; Aon Insurance and Reinsurance Brokers Philippines Inc.; BDO Insurance Brokers Inc.; Gotuaco, Del Rosario Insurance Brokers Inc.; HSBC Insurance Brokers (Philippines) Inc.; Intertrade Insurance Brokers; Jardine Lloyd Thompson Insurance Brokers; Marsh Philippines Inc.; Lockton Philippines Insurance and Reinsurance Brokers Inc.; and Unicon Insurance Brokers Corp.

Brokerage revenue or the commissions they earned also increased, by 12.1 percent to P7.3 billion in 2017 from P6.5 billion in 2016.

“As of end-2017, commissions of insurance brokers were mainly from the non-life insurance business in the amount of P6.2 billion, which represents 84.2 percent of the total commissions earned,” Funa said.

Meanwhile, the 19 firms engaged in reinsurance brokerage posted a combined net income of P2.2 billion in 2017, up 61.5 percent from 2016’s P1.4 billion.

However, the commissions earned by reinsurance brokers last year declined 8.6 percent to P154.2 billion from P168.8 million in 2016. —BEN O. DE VERA