THE Philippine insurance sector marked 2018 as its new banner year after it posted new record highs in premiums, net income and assets, according to the Insurance Commission (IC).
Citing reports submitted to the regulator, Insurance Commissioner Dennis B. Funa said the industry collected P290.15 billion in premiums in 2018, or 11.67 percent higher than the previous year’s P259.82 billion.
Broken down, the premium income of the life-insurance sector grew by 12.89 percent to P228.61 billion last year, from the P202.50 billion reported in 2017. The life- insurance sector accounts for 78.79 percent of the total premium income of the industry.
“In 2018, 75 percent of the life-insurance sector’s premium income or P170.22 billion was generated from the sale of variable life-insurance products, up by 14.33 percent from P148.88 billion in 2017; while premiums collected from traditional life-insurance products rose by 8.91 percent to P58.40 billion from P53.62 billion,” Funa said.
The nonlife-insurance sector reported a year-on-year (YoY) increase of 4.63 percent in net premiums written, amounting to P50.83 billion for 2018, from the previous year’s P48.58 billion.
Motor cars
As in the past, Funa said the motor car business again comprised more than half of the total premium income of the nonlife-insurance sector. The premium income from the motor car business went up by 8.55 percent to P26.90 billion, from P24.72 billion in 2017.
The IC also reported that the Mutual Benefit Associations (MBA) sector posted a 22.42-percent expansion in its total contributions/premium to P10.70 billion in 2018, from P8.74 billion in 2017.
Funa said the insurance industry’s net worth last year expanded by 5.32 percent to P337.37 billion, from the previous year’s P320.30 billion.
The life-insurance sector recorded an increase of 8.61 percent in net worth amounting to P219.91 billion, from P202.48 billion in 2017, primarily due to the increase in investment fluctuation reserves, which represents the unrealized appreciation in market value of stock and bond investments.
The IC also said the nonlife- insurance sector’s net worth fell by 5.66 percent to P82.33 billion, from P87.27 billion in 2017.
The MBA sector’s fund balance, which represents the accumulated earning of the sector, went up by 14.99 percent to P35.13 billion in 2018, from P30.55 billion in 2017.
The industry reported a net income of P37.43 billion in 2018, or 3 percent higher than the P36.39 billion recorded in 2017. The IC said this may be attributed to the 5-percent hike in the net income of the life- insurance sector.
Funa said the insurance industry’s assets reached P1.58 trillion in 2018, 1.28 percent higher than the P1.56 trillion recorded in 2017.
“Despite the year-on-year slight decrease in the total assets of the life-insurance sector, the industry’s overall assets reached an all-time high,” he said.
“The life-insurance sector maintains to hold bulk of the assets of the industry with P1.26 trillion in assets, or 79.75 percent of the total assets of the industry, while the nonlife- insurance sector and MBA sectors shared the remaining 20.25 percent with P230 billion and P90 billion, respectively,” he added.