ONE of the country’s fastest-growing life-insurance companies forecast the continued development of Cagayan de Oro City as an investment destination and growth center in Mindanao. This, the insurer said, helps validate its optimism the city will continue to significantly contribute to its performance as one of the more important risk mitigants in the country.
FWD Life Philippines, the first life insurer granted a license to operate under the new Insurance Code, opened its business hub and customer connect center here last year, its first outside of Metro Manila.
“We are very bullish on the growth prospects of our business in Cagayan de Oro, where it is strategically important for FWD Philippines. It carries the distinction of housing our best-performing agency sales team nationwide during our first year of operation,” FWD Life Philippines President and CEO Peter Grimes said.
Grimes claimed Cagayan de Oro City is emerging as the economic and financial center of Mindanao due to the city’s conducive peace and order condition, its stable power supply, its readily available and well-trained human resource, government efficiency and appropriate infrastructure.
It noted the United Nations cited Cagayan de Oro City in 2014 as “emerging city of tomorrow,” owing to its strong fundamentals that help strengthen its position as an emerging business leader in Mindanao.
Grimes said the rapid modernization of the city’s telecommunications and technology infrastructure has enabled the insurer to effectively reach larger number of clients in the region.
FWD said its agency sales team in Cagayan de Oro Citycontributed about a third of the company’s so-called annualized premium equivalent.
The insurer now has 200 financial wealth planners in its thriving Northern Mindanao hub, as well as financial-solutions consultants in Security Bank branches in the region and across the country.
“Our presence, particularly here in Mindanao, has been focused on addressing the needs of the unbanked sector and the increasing number of uninsured and under-insured Filipinos where the protection gap has grown wider,” Grimes said.
Insurance should be one of the most natural things that a person should buy, and not worry about such contingent events as personal injuries or fatal diseases like cancer.
FWD covers all types of cancer with the most comprehensive protection. The insurer’s “Fight Plan” covers a policyholder for 15 years up to P2 million.
FWD even covers those whose cancer have been discovered early and depending on the diagnosis, the client will be given 20 percent of the total coverage, he said.