AIG Philippines, an American nonlife insurance company, announced on Thursday it has earmarked $2.5 billion for property insurance for 2017 anticipation of the P7-trillion infrastructure rollout of the Duterte administration.
“With the infrastructure boom expected in the Philippines, that amount of capacity or new capability meets the needs of the Philippine market. So, that’s the kind of traditional insurance line where our competency is at work,” AIG Philippines President and CEO Mark Lwin told the BusinessMirror.
The company is reviewing its investment portfolio in line with plans to increase offers for public-private projects (PPP) and grow the insurance fund. Lwin said AIG Philippines had invested bonds in PPP in the past as either insurer or reinsurer.
He said AIG Philippines is also open to invest in other securities and Philippine stocks.
“We have a fairly traditional or more conservative approach here. As an insurance company, we have not yet directly invested in PPP securities, but it’s something we’re definitely looking at and very interested to see where the PPP market will go in the future,” he added.
Nevertheless, Lwin said AIG as leader in property casualty insurance will continue to enhance its core product this year.
Lwin added that investments in PPP for infrastructure is new for AIG. Instead, the company aims to design more specific products that mitigate losses from infrastructure-related risks.
“There’s a couple of areas where we are maybe more active and may have a high interest level, particularly in more customized risk solutions.”
So, maybe it’s in terms of a catastrophe bond [for earthquake or hurricane losses] or other ways to provide advisory services,” Lwin said.
