SUN Life Financial Philippines expects elevated growth in insurance product sales next year, after a “breather” this year that saw growth of around 15 percent in the earnings of their publicly listed companies.
Sun Life Philippines President and CEO Rizalina Mantaring said on Thursday that the listed companies of Sun Life are seen to post more or less 15-percent growth by the end of the year, which is low compared to growth posted in previous years.
“The life insurance industry in 2014 is something of a breather, because in the past years since 2010, there was phenomenal growth in the industry, wherein we’re averaging 25-percent to 30-percent growth. In terms of total premiums, it would be either flat or slightly lower,” Mantaring said at the sidelines of the Sinag Awards, Sun Life’s financial literacy journalism awards which seeks to promote financial literacy across all sectors in the Philippines.
Mantaring said that Sun Life’s sales of variable universal life (VUL) insurance policies picked up in the fourth quarter, especially on the “single-pay” VUL insurance policies which surged in November.
Sun Life sold P4.5 billion worth of VUL insurance policies in just eight days.
VUL insurance is a form of life insurance that offers both a death benefit and an investment feature.
The premiums are invested by the insurer in various investment instruments to pay for the insurance claims and the cash surrender values of the policies at maturity.
Single-pay VUL policies are those insurance policies for which the insured pays only a one-time premium, while “regular-pay” VUL policies are those wherein the premiums are paid at regular intervals. Both could be used as a form of savings and investment.
Mantaring said that Sun Life traditionally sells more regular-pay products than single-pay, with around 75 percent of their total VUL insurance sales in 2014 consisting of regular-pay insurance policies.
She also said that 93 percent of Sun Life’s total sales this year were VUL insurance products, while the remaining 7 percent were traditional insurance products.