Charter Ping An sets premium targets

MANILA, Philippines - Charter Ping An Insurance Corp. is optimistic it would hit its P3-billion gross written premium and net income target of P200 million for 2012.

 Charter Ping An president Melecio C. Mallillin said their optimism is anchored on the growing number of its agency force and a cooperative broker market.

It has already opened 18 branches nationwide and will open three or four more this year.

 2011 gross written premiums is expected to hit P2.2 billion while net income is estimated to reach P150 million. Total assets amounted to P4.79 billion last year.

But its underlaying strength is its smooth relation with members of the Metrobank Group of Companies.

Its auto insurance, which comprises roughly 30 percent of its total business, comes from its working relationship with the auto sales of the Metropolitan Bank & Trust Co. (Metrobank), Philippines Savings Bank (PSBank), Toyota Motor Philippines, as well as Orix Leasing and Toyota Financing.

Its property and catastrophy insurance products, which account for over 50 percent of its total business, are boosted by sister companies Federal Land Inc. and clients of Metrobank and PSBank.

 “Our business is also strengthened by the Chinese-Filipino client base of Metrobank,” added Emmanuel R. Que, Charter Ping An executive vice president.

In the long term, Charter Ping An is looking to create business from the lifting of trade barriers in 2015.

The partial of full implementation of the Asean Free Trade Agreement (AFTA) will see the entry of foreign players into the Philippine market.

For the country’s non-life insurance industry, 2015 could mean entering into strategic alliances with foreign players. That could mean, for example, Charter Ping An forging an alliance or agreement with a foreign player as its representative in the Philippines. Or that Charter Ping An could market its products in the home country of its foreign partner.

Charter Ping An was formerly known as the Philippine Charter Insurance Corp. which was ranked fifth in terms of net premiums written.

Mallillin explained that the change had nothing to do with Ping An Insurance Co. of China Ltd., one of the biggest insurer in mainland China. Ping An was ranked 147th in Forbes’ Global 2000 league table, 107th in The Financial Times Global 500 list, and 328th in Fortune Magazine’s Global 500 Leading Companies ranking and first among China’s non-state owned enterprises.

“Ping an in Mandarin means ‘safe and sound,’ and that is our promise to the clients and the Philippine economy,” he added. “But that does not mean we can not have any working relations with the Chinese insurer.”