MANILA – Insurance provider AIA Philippines is optimistic about the growth prospects of the company and the Philippine insurance industry as a whole.
In briefing on Tuesday, AIA Philippines chief financial officer Gary Ogilvie said that while inflation remains to be a concern, the low levels of health insurance penetration could provide opportunities for long-term growth.
"From an economic perspective, this is clearly good that we're emerging from the pandemic. People are starting to have more confidence. Things are opening up. However, I think inflation remains a concern as to exactly how that's going to play out. So that's really going to affect affordability in the middle market, which probably where the long-term growth is in terms of the insurance penetration rate," said Ogilvie.
He said that for now, their focus for sales will be more on the higher net worth area.
"That's why we're very focused on some of these innovative fund opportunities, guaranteed products, but also laying the ground for the middle market and covering over time, you know, as the Philippines gets back on the strong GDP (gross domestic product) growth, we will continue to look into balanced delivery across financial metrics," Ogilvie said.
He added that the challenge for now is to think through the best way to get affordable, accessible health care to the Philippine market.
Last year, AIA Philippines' total net worth amounted to PHP68 billion. Its net income meanwhile reached PHP6.3 billion.
For the industry as a whole, AIA Philippines chief executive officer Kelvin Ang said a lot can still be done.
"I think life insurance today as an industry, there's still a lot of supply growth that can be done such as diversity on the supply, to think about products that are not one size fits all but are more customized," said Ang. (PNA)
