AIA’s game changer

AIA Philippines is set to change the insurance market for the Philippines with new insurance products and its new female chief executive officer Melita Teo, who in less than six months is already loving her new life here but not the congested traffic that Mega Manila is cursed with.

Her career path did not actually start with the AIA Group, in fact her initial trajectory was in the banking and financial sector with stints in UOB and Mizuho Bank.

According to Melita, she actually “stumbled into insurance” where she “likes what I do, I like that I meet people and society,” and where she discovered that the insurance sector is “extremely meaningful” and that working in the industry is a “purposeful job.”

Particularly, she elaborates, “when families ultimately benefit from insurances when sometimes it is the least expected” and which “takes away the financial burden” for grieving families.

Insurance, she points out, is a “very understated need” that most families fail to prioritize, noting that in the Philippines, insurance penetration is still a very low “less than two percent”.

Melita, a Singaporean, brings with her 21 years of experience with the company. Prior to her appointment in January this year as AIA Philippines’ new CEO, she was chief customer and digital officer at AIA Singapore, where she was responsible for advancing the customer, brand, integrated health strategy and wealth propositions, accelerating the delivery of an integrated digital and analytics value creation for customers and distribution.

She previously served as chief operations officer, chief corporate solutions officer, chief business development officer for Vitality and head of planning and strategy. She was the driving and collaborative force behind the transformation of operations, digital and healthcare, introducing many policy controls and new growth initiatives and thought leadership, clearly differentiating AIA Singapore from the market.

Under her leadership, AIA Singapore received many industry accolades in digital, healthcare and customer service excellence. She holds a Bachelor of Commerce degree majoring in economics and finance from Curtin University of Technology – Western Australia.

And as it turns out, Melita’s education in Perth, Australia was part of a bigger destined path that has led her to her assignment here and reunited her with her best friend in school, Jancis Lao and Jancis’ family (of the well-known D&L Industries Inc.) who have adopted Melita as part of their extended family, easing any qualms about her first overseas posting.

Almost like a Korean drama lead actress (Melita it turns out is a K-drama fan who looks exactly like a K-drama actress, with her latest fave being the recent hit Queen of Tears), she is here to bring some changes to AIA’s MediCard Philippines, its wholly-owned health maintenance organization (HMO) company, that will benefit and provide better and longer coverage to elderly clients, female clients and their special needs including pregnancy, as well as those dealing with cancer.

And who knows, possibly may also end up with the man of her dreams here, just like in a K-drama romance!

Foreign education

Melita admits that she comes from a normal family, but with a very strong female influence from her mother who built a career with Singapore Airlines as an office administrator. It was her mother who was responsible for the decision to send her to Australia to get her college degree instead of just studying in Singapore.

Her 30 year friendship with Jancis Lao, she reveals, was also a factor in her decision to accept the offer to move to the Philippine as AIA’s new CEO. Jancis and her family, according to Melita, treated her as one of their own even back in Australia, and through the years Melita and Jancis never lost touch.

That bond of friendship and family, Melita shares, has eased her move to the Philippines, which she now considers as a second home. Her city of residence is in Makati, where her office is also conveniently located, thus lessening the need for her to deal with Mega Manila’s chaotic traffic.

Her office location also allows her to enjoy the pocket park of the Ayala Triangle where she has started her novel walking meetings, bringing some of her staff to hold and discuss office matters away in a more relaxed and enjoyable atmosphere.

As part of her job, Melita has also been visiting the provinces and with the Philippines surrounded by water, Melita has expressed interest in possibly learning how to dive to discover the underwater beauty of the country, especially since she also likes the taste of Philippine sea urchins which she finds tastes “creamier.”

New products

One area that Melita is already working on to strengthen the AIA Group’s health and wellness proposition is the HMO sector where they are looking at longer and more comprehensive coverage and where they plan to offer more options. According to Melita, AIA hopes to have a more concrete concept either by the end of this year or early next year.

Additionally, she said, the company intends to offer screening and health maintenance services and early detection of diseases, something that is personal to her stemming from her mother’s own experience after retiring and discovery of possibly cancerous lymph nodes through early detection and was thus nipped in the bud.

One thing she commends about Medicard’s HMO operations in the country is the fact that it has an extensive network of medical clinics that are well-equipped, a legacy that she hopes to expand and continue.

With Melita’s unique and personal perspective, the future is bright for AIA Philippines, along with the guidance of its new Board that includes former banker Aurelio “Gigi” Montinola, who replaced former Central Bank Governor Jose Cuisia Jr.