Life insurance premium payments reach P170B in 2013

MANILA, Philippines – The total premiums paid to the life insurance sector in 2013 reached P169.8 billion, ccording to the Insurance Commission (IC).

Citing preliminary reports, Insurance Commissioner Emmanuel Dooc said the amount represented a 41% growth from the P120.3 billion in premium payments in 2012.

In 2013, the total net income of the life insurance sector grew by 31% to P13.8 billion, while total investments grew by 7% to P486.9 billion from the year before that.

“I always attribute this to the country’s economic growth,” Dooc told reporters at the sidelines of the induction of the Philippine Life Insurance Association’s committee chairpersons for 2014.

Dooc said only about half of the companies in the non-life sector have submitted figures to the IC, but he esimates that the combined performance of both life and non-life sectors will hit the target of P200 billion for 2013.

“I’m still sticking to my projection: it will be P200 billion for the combined production of the life and non-life sector, more or less,” he said.

Dooc said growth in the 4th quarter of 2013 slowed down due to the destruction brought by Super Typhoon Yolanda (Haiyan).

“We saw strong growth in the third quarter, but the last quarter may not be enough, so we may be off target by a few billion pesos,” he said.

But For 2014, however, Dooc does not expect last year’s 4th quarter slowdown to carry over to this year. He projects a growth of 15% to 20% for the entire insurance industry

Dooc also announced the transfer to the Insurance Commission, from the health department, of the power to regulate of health maintenance organizations (HMOs) to better regulate them.

The IC chief said a draft executive order is now being reviewed by the health department, and will “require the integration of all health insurance and health maintenance providers under one administrative and regulatory body, which is the IC,” Dooc said.

“Unless a strong opposition to that move appears, we can expect that such transfer of authority will take effect in the next 6 months,” he said.

Dooc said 21 HMOs are registered with the Department of Health, but “only about half of that are still active.” He hopes to “introduce some reforms, there will be more players.” 

The insurance chief also mentioned the establishment of the Earthquake Protection Insurance Corporation or EPIC.

“Our objectives are to develop the necessary support structure that will facilitate the establishment of the EPIC, and to achieve coordination between EPIC and the domestic non-life insurance players and re-insurers in the implementation of earthquake insurance coverage,” he said. – Rappler.com