Life insurer Pru Life UK sees more Filipinos getting insured in the coming months amid the Covid-19 pandemic.
Pru Life Senior Vice President and Chief Marketing Officer Allan Tumbaga said clients remain keen on securing insurance policies despite the imposition of lockdowns to curb the spread of Covid-19.
“Definitely the insurance take-up will increase. That’s what we have been seeing,” Tumbaga said.
“What we see is that even given the pandemic given all the restrictions we have now, people are still getting insurance. And interestingly enough, in the surveys that were conducted by the likes of other research agencies, younger people are more interested because the pandemic showed that anything can happen to you; [the pandemic] was not expected so it’s best to be prepared always.”
As of the first quarter of this year, insurance penetration in the country for life insurance, non-life insurance companies, and mutual benefit associations was at 2.3 percent, data from the Insurance Commission showed. By the end of 2020, it was at 1.71 percent.
Tumbaga also said the company is currently looking at the possibility of creating a specific package for Covid-19.
If Covid-19 becomes mainstream like the flu, Tumbaga said this may just be a part of the regular coverage of the company’s critical illness products.
“We may have one specific for it. But the more we are vaccinated and the more it becomes mainstream like the flu, there may not even be a need for one specific to it. But we’re studying that, definitely,” he said.
In the meantime, Tumbaga said the company is eyeing to rollout more features for their AI-powered health management app called Pulse, such as coming up with a Tagalog version and adding a wealth component.
“Because we did plan to come up with a Tagalog or Filipino version. It may come out with the Filipino version so it will become even more inclusive,” he said. “We’ve been talking about health. So, definitely something to look forward to will be the wealth component.”
Last year, Pru Life UK topped the list of life insurers in terms of New Business Annual Premium Equivalent (NBAPE) with P7.95 billion.
The NBAPE is an international standard adopted by the Insurance Commission to more accurately measure the life insurance industry’s sales performance.
It is computed by obtaining the sum of the value of the first year premiums from products newly sold in a specific year and 10 percent of single premiums written.