Insurance Commissioner Emmanuel F. Dooc is confident that the industry will hit P240 billion to P250 billion in premium income by the end of the year.
He also vowed to foster an environment that will enable the industry to net P500 billion in total premium by 2019.
Speaking at the Philippine Life Insurance Association Inc.’s (PLIA) 65th anniversary, Dooc predicted a 30-percent growth in total premium income this year from last year’s P189 billion.
“We may post premium income of P240 billion to P250 billion this year, much better than the banner year in 2013, when we hit about P200 billion, the highest so far in the insurance industry,” he said during the PLIA’s 65th anniversary on Tuesday night.
Dooc stressed the growth and expansion of insurance business, citing figures back in 2009, when it posted a premium income of only P80 billion. He said this is an important achievement for the industry.
When President Aquino steps down next year, Dooc expects the industry to record total premium of P300 billion at the end of 2016. With three more years to go, “we will get half a trillion in total premium income,” he said.
“My fearless forecast is that by the time I leave the Insurance Commission—my tenure is until December 2019—we will be hitting total premium of half a trillion, based on a 20-percent to 25-percent compounded annual growth,” he added. This year both life and nonlife sectors are driving the growth. But the life sector is showing more robust growth than the nonlife segment.
“It’s very achievable to meet the half-a-trillion premium income, and hopefully our gross domestic product [GDP] growth will not outpace us, because at that growth rate, GDP may not be higher than our growth. So our penetration rate will go up. At that rate, we’ll be hitting 3 percent in 2019 from 1.5 percent. The Asean average penetration rate is 3 percent,” he said. Should there be major catastrophe that will arise, basically, it will have an impact on the nonlife sector.
He also noted the rise in insurance business due to calamities, which require response from the insuring public. He added that the broadening of the industry’s portfolio, which enables insurers to compete with other financial institutions like investment-linked insurance products, is also driving the insurance industry’s growth