Insurance firms beef up Cebu operations

CEBU, Philippines- Taking advantage of the growing awareness on the importance of insurance, two life insurance giants are now beefing up their presence in Cebu.

Sun Life Financial Philippines and Philippine American Life and General Insurance Company (Philam Life), both announced its aggressive expansion in Cebu, boosting the number of financial advisors.

Sun Life Philippines Cebu branch manager Pete Gonzales said they are on an active expansion mode with Cebu being a strategic growth area for Sun Life.

"Last year we added more people from 170 to 280 now. We also added more supervisors and managers from 13 to 32," Gonzales said.

This year, Gonzales said they are targeting to have at least 350 people in Cebu.

"Cebu is critical to our operations as it serves not only Cebu but also other areas like in Tacloban and Tagbilaran," added Gonzales.

Gonzales said that their strategy is to have agents who are also engaged in the sectors that fuel economic growth in the region like outsourcing, tourism and real estate.

"We have agents who are working in BPOs or are also real estate agents as well as those in the hotel or tourism business. We think we can start where the growth is coming from especially the young professionals who now earn more and have higher disposable income," said Gonzales.

Likewise, Philam Life president and chief executive officer Bobby Madrid said that the company is loading up its battery of financial advisors in Cebu and other parts of the Visayas, while financial literacy and awareness on the importance of insurance is on the upstream.

In Cebu, the company's director of agencies Rolan Enriquez said that with current 600 insurance agents working for the company, Cebu is growing faster more than the over-all national average.

The country's insurance penetration stood at 16 percent, slowly climbing from stagnating at 12 percent in the past several years. (FREEMAN)