Insurers continue to recover

MANILA, Philippines - The local insurance industry continued to recover in the first half of 2017 as all its sectors exhibited strong performance during the period, the Insurance Commission (IC) reported yesterday.

In a statement, Insurance Commissioner Dennis Funa said the insurance industry posted a premium income of P117.29 billion as of end-June, 11.15 percent up from the P105.52 billion recorded the same period last year.

“It should be recalled that during the first half of 2016, the insurance sector experienced a 9.11 percent decline in premium income to P105.52 billion during the same period in 2015. This year, however, the insurance industry posted a positive growth in terms of premiums generated as early as the first half of the year,” Funa said.

The commissioner said the robust growth experienced this first semester was brought about by the positive performance of all sectors in the insurance industry.

The life sector, for one, generated P90.79 billion in premium income, higher by 10.46 percent from the P82.20 billion recorded a year ago.

“The increase in the premium income of the life insurance sector can be attributed to the 3.05 percent and 13.69 percent growth in premiums generated from the sale of both traditional life insurance and variable life insurance, respectively,” Funa said.

“The increase in premiums generated from the sale of traditional life products was brought about by the remarkable increase in its single premiums and first year premiums. For variable life insurance products, on the other hand, while there is a slight decrease in single premiums, there were significant increases in its first year and renewal premiums,” he added.