Sun Life sees premium income breaching P40B

MANILA, Philippines - Sun Life Financial Philippines said it expects its combined total premium income for 2013 to breach the P40-billion mark this year.

This includes sales produced by both Sun Life of Canada Philippines Inc., Sun Life Financial’s life insurance company, and Sun Life Grepa, the joint venture bancassurance firm with the Rizal Commercial Banking Corp. (RCBC), and Sun Life Financial.

In 2012, Sun Life of Canada reported premium income of P20 billion while Sun Life Grepa hit P5.8 billion.

Sun Life Financial president and chief executive officer Rizalina Mantaring said the insurer is confident its 2013 results would outperform that of last year.

“We will do better than industry this year,” Mantaring said in a press briefing.

Last week, the Insurance Commission (IC) reported that the insurance industry grew 30.29 percent in the first nine months of 2013.

Combined new business (first-year premiums) grew 73 percent in the third quarter alone.

Mantaring, however, said she expects the last quarter, which is traditionally a strong sales period, to be slightly weaker due to the impact of Super Typhoon Yolanda.

Of the total sales, 80 percent are regular payments while the balance of 20 percent are single-pay premiums or one-time payments.

In the first three quarters of the year, the life insurance sector already surpassed the net income registered for the whole of 2012.

Total earnings were placed at P9.7 billion last year while net income at the start of October this year stood at P11.2 billion.