AXA sees record premium income this year

MANILA, Philippines - With just a month remaining in 2015, AXA Philippines is confident that its full year total premium income will breach the P21-billion mark.

In the first nine months of the year, premium income reached P17.3 billion or a 36.1-percent better than the same period in 2014. The first semester contribution in premiums amounted to P11.9 billion.

Last year, the total premium income already amounted to P18.34 billion.

AXA Philippines president and chief executive officer Rien Hermans said that growth would likely slacken in December, dampening any expectations of hitting the higher end of P21-billion. “But we grew faster than industry,” he added.

But Hermans said that regular pay premiums increased its share of first year premiums to 30 percent.

Regular pay premiums assure a constant flow of earnings versus a one-time gain in single premium pay.

Likewise, the share of the 2,700-agency force grew by 26 percent from the total.

The main source of premiums are in the hands of the financial executives (FEs) positioned in the combined 915 branch network of the Metropolitan Bank & Trust Co. (Metrobank) and the Philippine Savings Bank (PSBank).

AXA Philippines is a joint venture undertaking between AXA Asia, GT Capital Inc., and the First Metro Investment Corp. Its principal sales platform is bancassurance or the sale of life insurance through the bank’s branch network and client base.

Meanwhile, 90-percent of product sale were variable unit-linked (VUL) or life insurance products laced with investment instruments.

Another seven percent are traditional or pure protection life insurance, and the rest are group insurance.

“The market unfortunately still prefers investments with their life insurance,” Hermans said.

AXA Philippines insures 714,000 lives, majority of which emanate from its group insurance accounts. It has 32 branches and 610 FEs, majority deployed in Metrobank branches.

“We only started tapping PSBank last month,” the AXA Philippines chief executive said.

With the P18.34 billion premium income last year, AXA Philippines ranked second best life insurer. Total VUL income amounted to a whopping P16 billion.