Philam Life launches 2 new products

MANILA, Philippines - Philippine American Life and General Insurance Co. (Philam Life) has launched two new unit-linked products (ULP) in its life insurance line in a bid to boost its premium income this year.

ULPs are life insurance products laced with investment instruments, otherwise referred to as protection and savings/investment. It is also known in the industry as variables or unit linked (VULs).

The two ULPs are priced at affordable pricing points, with variants that require merely P2,000 a month in premiums.

Philam Life marketing head Jessica C. Abaya said their VUL sales are now outpacing traditional or pure protection products.

“About 80 percent of sales so far are ULPs,” Abaya said in a briefing yesterday. Last year, ULPs accounted for nearly 60 percent of total sales.

She expressed confidence that the new products will boost the sale of traditional and ULPs as the highly-liquid market is hungry for both investments and protection.

“Only four percent of the country’s population have personal life insurance products,” she said. Nearly 19 percent of the country’s population are holders of some form of protection, majority of which are government funds such as the Government Security and Insurance System (GSIS), PhilHealth and the Social Security System (SSS).

However, the gradual demise of special deposit accounts (SDAs) means there is roughly P1 trillion that will return to the market in search of new options.

Philam Life reported total premiums of P15.29 billion in 2012, from P13.35 billion in 2011.

Abaya said Philam Life would launch new products this year.

Its present basket of products is composed of 12 basic life insurance products, five of which are ULPs, five health-related, one term product with variants, and another whole product.

These are sold through its 7,000-strong agency force or through its bancassurance joint venture company, BPI Philam Life Assurance Co.

Philam Life has also forged alliances with BDO Unibank Inc., the Metropolitan Bank & Trust Co. (Metrobank) and BPI as payment outlets for premium payments.