GSIS set to release P90 million dividends for optional insurance

Policyholders of the Government Service Insurance System Optional Life Insurance (OLI) can now expect money in their eCards' ATM accounts as the state pension fund will start distributing about P90.2 million in OLI dividends this year.

Those whose OLI policies have been enforced at least one year before December 31, 2004 and have remained active policyholders as of December 31, 2005 are eligible to receive the dividends.

Before, recipients of OLI dividend need to wait for days before getting their checks through mail. But since practically every GSIS member now has an eCard, those qualified to receive OLI dividends can simply withdraw the cash from any of the 6,000 ATMs in the country.

They can even use the eCard as cash card in any commercial establishment that has a VISA Electron debit card facility.

The GSIS said that on average, an OLI policyholder stands to receive P468.

The crediting of dividends to the recipients' eCard came after the GSIS Board of Trustees issued Resolution No. 52 declaring P92.2 million in OLI dividends and directing the state pension fund to begin distributing these to qualified OLI policy holders.

An OLI dividend is different from the regular life insurance dividend issued yearly to almost all GSIS members. Regular life insurance is compulsory to every GSIS member and a portion of monthly GSIS contributions become premiums to regular life insurance.

On the other hand, OLI is optional to GSIS members who want additional life insurance from the pension fund, which recently embarked on a massive computerization of OLI policies.

While this undertaking took some amount of time, it allowed the GSIS to identify which policies are no longer qualified to receive dividends.

In fact, the program enabled the GSIS to cleanse its database of some 30,000 policies that have already lapsed mostly due to unpaid premiums. - Jasmin R. Uy