PNB Life sets P5-B premium target in 2013

MANILA, Philippines - PNB Life Insurance Inc. is eyeingto reach the P5-billion mark in total premiums for 2013, or roughly 28 percent better than the P3.9 billion it achieved in 2012.

Since 2009, the life insurance company of the Lucio Tan Group has recorded an average 71-percent growth rate.

In 2011, gross premiums amounted to P2 billion in 2011, P1 billion in 2010, and P846 million in 2009.

“The goals must be bigger to avoid complacency,” PNB Life president Esther Tan, said.

Supporting the P5-billion target are new products in the pipeline, an expanding strong and professional sales force, and strategic push and pull marketing initiatives.

Tan, who is also president of the Philippine Life Insurance Association (PLIA), attributes the company’s successes to the values of integrity and teamwork in bringing together its management team, employees, sales force working seamlessly to the achievement of its strategic objectives.

PNB Life inspires its clients into realizing their financial purposes, so it must also inspire its employees and salesforce, she added.

It also helps that PNB Life is part of the Lucio Tan Group, with the financial muscle and corporate presence of  the Philippine National Bank (PNB) network.

Likewise, the successful implementation of strategic initiatives in the areas of distribution, product design, marketing, a sales force and the PNB branch banking group for its bancassurance partnership.

PNB has 627 branches nationwide plus one of the widest international footprint among Philippine banks spanning Asia, Europe, Middle East and North America.

Through bancassurance, PNB Life products reached to a larger base of the market with PNB Life’s varied protection, endowment, investment, and group product to a larger client base.

Bancassurance is the privilege of selling insurance products through the branch network of a bank, in this case PNB, as well as the bank’s existing client base. It is also known as cross-selling.

Banks became the favorite outlet for single pay premiums and variable unit-linked life insurance products that are laced with investment options.

From its sale of the unit-linked products alone, the company generated P2.6 billion in 2012, a staggering 1,053-percent growth from its 2009 performance of mere P227 million.

PNB Life services almost 50,000 individual policies in-force to date, mostly bank-referred clients of PNB.

“Overall, in terms of profitability, the company rests its laurels on achieving P115 million net income (after income tax), posting 997 percent growth versus P10.5 million in 2009,” Tan added.