Insular Life posts 13% hike in net income

Insular Life Assurance Corp. has recorded a 13-percent growth in premium income, or from P4.8 billion in 2001 to P5.5 billion last year.

First year premium income alone grew by a whopping 36 percent from P810 million in 2001 to P1.1billion in 2002. Of that, P187 million came from its new product, the Dollar Earner, which is a one-time premium payment product.

Insular Life chairman and president Vicente Ayllon said they are looking to increase their total premium income this year by another P1.3 billion for a total of P6.8 billion. Insular Life was ranked third among the country’s life insurance companies in 2001.

Investment income reached P1.4 billion in 2002 which is slightly lower than the P1.6 billion recorded in the previous year.

Ayllon explained that in 2001, they were able to sell real estate properties located in Makati thus accounting for its huge earnings that year. "We were not selling anything last year," he pointed out. Net income last year was P488 million.

Most investments last year were placed in government securities, commercial papers, and other low risk financial products. Insular Life also has equity investments in Honda Philippines and Union Bank of the Philippines.

The life insurer can not practice bancassurance since its does not have a strategic alliance with any commercial bank. Thus it has to rely mainly on its agency force and create new alternative distribution channels to reach its targets this year.

"We have to hassle,"Ayllon stressed, adding that they also have to keep fending off "suitors." Insular Life has been receiving offers to sell out or accept a strategic partner. It had reportedly been offered by Ayala Life Assurance Corp., Sunlife of Canada, and two foreign insurers to start either merger procedures or allow equity investments.

However, Insular Life is a mutual company thus it has to "de-mutualize" first before it can accept strategic partners. "We are not looking in that direction at the moment."