Grepalife premium income up 33% in first nine months

The Great Pacific Life Assurance Corp. (Grepalife) recorded total premium income of P900.782 million in end September this year or 32.53 percent better than the same period last year.

Grepalife is a member of the Yuchengco Group of Companies (YGC) focused mainly in the life insurance industry. Its sister companies are Malayan Insurance Co. Inc. (non-life insurance sector) and Pacific Plans Inc. (pre-need industry).

The nine-month premium income is just approximately P300-million short of the full year 2003 target of P1.2 billion. Total premium income for the whole of 2001 was P1.005 billion and it rose to P1.13 billion last year.

First-year premiums rose by 32.53 percent to P317.863 million while renewal premium income grew to P582.919 million, better by 4.4 percent than the previous year.

Ordinary premiums grew by 52 percent while salary-based premiums rose by 32 percent.

Emiliano B. Quijano, Grepalife executive vice president attributed the good performance to several factors.

"Good and innovative products such as the single premium product, US dollar-based products, and group insurance as well as better-than-expected performances of both agency force and other distribution channels contributed to the performance," Quijano said.

Group insurance remains one of its strengths as Grepalife has remained in the top five in the past three years. Recently, it signed covenants with First Consolidated Bank, Sanyo, Network Bank, and the Water and Sewerage Savings and Loan Association.

Of the total nine-month income performance, bancassurance accounted for P33.528 million from both Metro Manila and other areas. Bancassurance allows insurers to market their products in the premises of a commercial bank as long as the latter controls five-percent equity of the former.

The Rizal Commercial Bank Corp. (RCBC) is the flagship financial institution of the YGC. It controls more than five percent of Grepalife. However, it also has a strategic alliance with Nippon Life Insurance Company of the Philippines (Nippon Life Phils.).

The arrangement originally called for Grepalife concentrating on all areas outside Metro Manila while Nippon Life stayed focused on Metro Manila.

But by the third quarter, the YGC decided that Metro Manila was "no man’s land" or both life insurers can sell its products in Metro Manila. Nippon Life mainly concentrates on the A&B markets while Grepalife targets the C&D market.

So far, the Metro Manila market accounted for P197.701 million of the total premium income this year. Provincial sales reached P669.553 million.

Grepalife has been ranked among the top 10 life insurers for the past five years, and it joined the "Billionnaires Club" in 2001. The exclusive group is composed of life insurers tha have sold more than P1-billion worth of premiums.

The other members in order of their ranking in 2001 are the Philippine American Life and General Insurance Co., Sun Life of Canada (Phils.) Inc., Insular Life Assurance Corp., Manufacturers Life Insurance Company (Philippines) Inc., Philippine Axa Life Insurance, and Ayala Life Assurance Corp. – TPT