Generali Pilipinas eyes 5th spot

 Generali Pilipinas Life Assurance Co. has pulled all caps, and wants to take over the fourth or fifth over-all position among the country’s life insurers by end 2008.

“We are targeting total combined premium income of P4.5 billion in 2008,” Sharon Borres-Maranan, senior executive vice president and chief operating officer of Generali Pilipinas, said.

That means gross premium income for life of P3.4 billion and roughly another P1.1 billion for the non-life portion. Generali Pilipinas is a holder of a composite license issued by the Insurance Commission, meaning it can sell both life and non-life insurance products.

But to make the 2008 premium income target reachable, it must end 2007 with a premium income of P2.7 billion. After the first 10 months of this year, premium income alredy reached P1.95 billion.

Maranan said that the key to achieving their 2008 target, is selling their life and non-life insurance products through the 600 branch network of Banco de Oro Unibank Inc. (BDO), which owns 40 percent of Generali Pilipinas.

The remaining 60-percent stake is controlled by Generali Asia, which in turn, is a regional alliance between Assicurazioni Generali (Generali) of Italy and Jerneh Asia Berhad of Malaysia.

Generali Pilipinas does not see any problem with sharing the bank and its client base with the Philam Equitable Life Assurance Corp. (PELAC), which originally tapped the branch network of then Equitable PCI Bank.

But since BDO acquired Equitable in 2005, the two insurers found themselves working under one roof. There was a solution.

Generali Pilipinas only sells traditional life products and non-life insurance, while PELAC sells single premium policies and the popular variable or unit-linked (VUL) life insurance products.

VULs are life insurance products laced with an investment product. In fact, it has been accounting for majority of the country’s life insurance premiums in the past two years.

So far, 55 percent of its policies sold have been through the BDO branch network while 33 percent are group insurance sold through its brokers network.

Maranan said that they are also considering selling VULs outside of the BDO network. — Ted Torres