Sun Life, Prudential Guarantee lead life and non-life insurers in Philippines

MANILA, Philippines — The Insurance Commission (IC) announced Sun Life Canada (Philippines) Inc. and Prudential Guarantee and Assurance Inc. (PGAI) remained the highest-ranked life and non-life insurance company, respectively, in terms of premium income in 2020.

Based on insurance companies’ quarterly reports on selected financial statistics submitted to IC at the end of December last year, Sun Life topped life insurance companies with a premium income of P39.27 billion, while PGAI led the non-life sector with net premiums written (NPW) amounting to P4.55 billion in 2020.

Both Sun Life and PGAI were also ranked number one in their segments
 in 2019.

PGAI has led non-life insurance companies in NPW for five consecutive years, from 2011 to 2015, then again from 2017 to 2020.

Unlike gross premiums written, NPW already takes into account the effect of ceded reinsurance. It indicates an insurance company’s underwriting process and quality of risk selection, thereby retaining more risks and bigger premiums.

“Net premiums written are obtained by subtracting a non-life insurance company’s reinsurance cessation from gross premiums written. It represents how much of the premiums non-life insurers get for assuming risks,” IC Commissioner Dennis Funa said.

According to the IC’s 2020 ranking, PGAI was followed by Malayan Insurance Co.’s NPW of P4.08 billion. Third-best in the non-life sector was Pacific Cross Insurance Inc. (Blue Cross Insurance, Inc) with P3.32 billion.

Rounding out the top 10 list of non-life insurance firms’ NPW performance were Pioneer Insurance & Surety Corp. with P2.97 billion; BPI/MS Insurance Corp. with P2.82 billion; Charter Ping An Insurance Corp. with P2.64 billion; Mercantile Insurance Co. with P2.04 billion; Commonwealth Insurance Co. with P1.79 billion; FPG Insurance Co. with P1.69 billion and Standard Insurance Co. with P1.51 billion.

In March, international credit rating agency AM Best assigned a stable market segment outlook to the Philippines’ non-life insurance market even as the sector was impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020.

Among life insurers, Philippine Axa Life Insurance Corp. came after Sun Life last year as it posted a premium income of P31.27 billion, with Pru Life Insurance Corp. of UK coming in third with P30.98 billion.

The other life insurance companies in the top 10 were The Philippine American Life and General Insurance Co. with P16.77 billion; BPI-Philam Life Assurance Corp. with P16.30 billion; Manufacturers Life Insurance Co. (Phils.) Inc. with P15.88 billion; Allianz PNB Life Insurance Inc. with P15.76 billion; BDO Life Assurance Co. Inc. with P15.14 billion; FWD Life Insurance Corp. with P13.64 billion and the Insular Life Assurance Co., Ltd. with P10.37 billion.