THE Insurance Commission (IC) said the growth in premium payments the past six years should help push the so-called market-penetration rate of the industry to 50 percent by 2019.
Insurance Commissioner Emmanuel F. Dooc said that in three years, one in every two Filipinos should already have some form of insurance cover.
Dooc said the rising premium payments of policyholders is indicative of the country’s economic expansion and the capacity of Filipino families to buy insurance that in the past was typically low in the roster of priorities among Filipino families.
In 2009 the penetration rate was only 14.08 percent, which meant that at that time only 12.8 million of the 91 million total population had insurance cover.
As of September 2015, however, some 39.62 million Filipinos have insurance cover equal to 38.92 percent of the total population.
The improvement in the penetration rate of the insurance industry averaged 176.42 percent from 2009 to September 2015.
Aside from the growth in penetration rate, the volume of premiums collected by the industry almost tripled from 2009 to 2015, with most of the premiums collected from the sale of variable universal life (VUL) insurance policies.
In 2009 total premium collection by the entire insurance industry amounted only to P80.3 billion.
By 2015, total premium collections for the year had already increased by 188 percent to P231.7 billion, with most of the premiums from life-insurance policies for which P188.5 billion was paid. The nonlife sector collected premiums totaling P15.5 billion, while mutual benefit associations collecting P3.2 billion in premiums.
The only time when annual premium collection contracted was in 2014, when premium collection shrunk by 5 percent from premium collections in 2013. This was because the 2013 premium collection was considered a banner year, when total premiums grew by 34.16 percent amounting to P205.89 billion.
Data from the IC show VUL products remain the top source of insurer premium payments, outnumbering premium collection from traditional insurance products three-to-one.
In the life-insurance sector, total premiums paid for VUL in 2015 alone amounted to P138.73 billion, while premiums paid for traditional life- insurance policies amounted only to P49.8 billion.
VUL premium collection outperforming premium collection from traditional life-insurance policies was evident in the sales numbers of the top 5 life-insurance companies.
For instance, Sun Life of Canada (Phils.), which retained the top spot in terms of premium collection in 2015, collected P26.09 billion for VUL policies and only P6.72 billion for traditional life- insurance policies.
The ratio was even more skewed in favor of VUL for second-placer Philippine AXA Life Insurance Corp. which collected P20.55 billion in premiums for VUL policies and only P2.27 billion for traditional life-insurance policies.