Brit life insurer strengthens business penetration in Philippines

CEBU, Philippines - British life insurer Pru Life UK is intensifying its business penetration in the Philippines in its bid to play a vital role in inculcating income and life protection literacy among Filipinos.

Aside from expanding its network around the country and adjusting its premium packages to suit the greater number of Filipinos, Pru Life focuses on selling protection-based premiums, alongside bundled products such as investments, health, among others, said Pru Life UK senior vice president and chief agency officer Maria Divina Furagganan in a press conference yesterday.

Furagganan said Pru Life has recognized the reasons why the Philippines is lagging behind in terms of insurance penetration rate among developing countries in Asia, because the general direction is not focused on protection-based selling.

Now armed with a more focused direction, the company, which has been operating in the country for 20 years now targets an annual growth of at least 20 percent.

From a market share of seven percent in 2011, Pru Life cornered an 11 percent share in the market as of last year, due to its more direct and focused marketing approach, Furagganan said.

"We are doing our share in increasing insurance penetration gap in the country," he said referring to the bottom two percent rate of insurance penetration in the Philippines.

The Philippine insurance industry is a US$370 billion market waiting to be tapped–with the right approach, product and extensive market education.

At present, the country’s insurance sector only covered P100 billion worth of premiums, Furagganan said, explaining further than if this market well exhausted it could grow six time bigger.

Pru Life UK officials were in Cebu yesterday to officially launch its newest product dubbed "PRUmax invest".

Integrating the best features of traditional and unit-linked life insurance products, PRUmax invests is a 15-year renewable term plan which provides comprehensive protection coverage through the base traditional plan–PRUmax value 15, while also allowing the opportunity for wealth accumulation by investing in various PRUlink peso funds through the new Variable Life Rider.

Pru Life is a subsidiary of British financial services giant Prudential plc. Established in 1848, Prudential plc has an extensive network of life insurance and mutual funds operations around the world, active in the United Kingdom.

Based on IC data, the local unit of United Kingdom’s Prudential PLC booked P15.634 billion in total premium income in 2014, the fourth highest in the country. Pru Life raked in a P9.354 billion in total premium income in the first half, up from the P6.969 billion it recorded during the same period in 2013 data from the IC based on companies’ submissions of their unaudited quarterly statistics. (FREEMAN)