Pru Life UK premium income doubles to P5.2B in January-September

MANILA, Philippines - The local unit of Pru Life UK doubled its premium income in the first nine months of 2010 and surpassed its performance for the full-year period in 2009.

Pru Life UK generated P5.2 billion in premium income from January to September this year, higher than the full-year 2009 total of P3.5 billion. In the first nine months of 2009, total premium income was placed at P2.6 billion.

 “We are comfortable that the momentum of the January to September premiums will be sustained until the end of the year,” Antonio Manuel G. de Rosas, Pru Life UK chief executive officer for the Philippines, said in a briefing.

New business, or policies gained in a given year, nearly doubled from P539 million in the first nine months of 2009 to P1.127 billion this year.

Net income for the same period hit a high of P230 million, a 155-percent increase from the P90 million registered in the first nine months of 2009.

De Rosas admitted that the booming Philippine economy had played a major role in setting the insurer’s record premium income. “The agency force had also been extremely productive at over 30 percent from the previous levels,” he added.

But the bigger challenge for the insurer, which ranked sixth in the country in terms of total premium income last year, is how to attract some of the P1 trillion locked in special deposit accounts (SDA) held by the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP), he added.

Interest earnings from SDAs range between three to four percent.

In the long term, the investing public could earn more than double that figure investing in unit-linked life insurance products, mutual funds or trust funds.

Meanwhile, Pru Life in the Philippines handles 2,300 agents scattered all over the country.

“We would like to enter into partnerships with banks in various levels allowable by law to expand our network,” Prulife vice president Belle S. Tiongco said.

Aside from its agency force, Pru Life has insurance broker arrangements with Citi and HSBC.

Pru Life sells mainly unit-link life insurance products, or insurance policies laced with investment features. The investment aspect is similar to mutual fund products that are invested in fixed income or bonds, equities or stocks.

Pru Life in the Philippines, however, represents a mere 1.5 percent of the total regional operations of Prudential.