AIA Philippines: Gearing up for the future of life insurance

MANILA, Philippines — AIA Philam Life officially announced its transition to AIA Philippines, its new brand name aligned with AIA Group, its Hong Kong-based parent company. 

Philam Life was established in 1947 by AIG founder Cornelius Vander Starr and his partner, Earl Carroll, which served as a “house of savings.”

In just two years, they were able to achieve their goal to help Filipinos protect themselves against risk, even helping the Philippine economy recover postwar.  

While times have changed, the company’s mission of racing against risk to protect Filipino families has not. Through the decades, AIA Philippines has been a strong partner of Filipinos to protect themselves and prepare for life’s uncertainties.

Now, as the company fully embraces its heritage, AIA Philippines focuses on the fulfillment of their purpose of helping people live healthier, longer, better lives. 

In 2009, then Philam Life officially became part of the AIA Group, the leading 100-year-old pan-Asian life insurance organization based in Hong Kong, with a presence in 18 markets across the Asia-Pacific region. 

By constantly driving innovation, AIA Philippines has remained at the forefront of the life insurance industry, introducing first to market concepts such as AIA Vitality (launched previously as Philam Vitality) in 2015, which is a game-changing app-based wellness program that helps customers live better by giving them the means to know and improve their health and incentivizing them with rewards as they do so.  

With the declaration of a worldwide pandemic in 2020, AIA Philippines was again challenged to innovate and adapt quickly. With the closure of the Customer Service Centers and the lockdowns limiting the movement of financial advisors, there was a need to find alternative ways to be accessible to customers.

In a matter of weeks, AIA Philippines launched its chatbot and enhanced digital selling (EDS) system. Within another month or so, a more robust platform replaced EDS, called the Coffee Closing, where digital selling could be finished within 20 minutes—or before the coffee gets cold.   

“Beyond our achievements through the years, the strength of AIA Philippines has always been its people. We are where we are now because of our employees and partners whose work brought so much pride to the company. We look back in gratitude to their contributions for bringing AIA Philippines to where it is today,” said Kelvin Ang, chief executive officer of AIA Philippines.

“And now, amid the pandemic, we are making this transition to AIA Philippines because we know that we need to take this bold step to fully embrace a future full of possibilities. By evolving into AIA Philippines, we finally embody who we are: a company with local understanding and imbued with global strength and capabilities,” he added.  

While the change to AIA Philippines is only a change in brand name, this is accompanied by major internal transformations that will take place, in alignment with the strategic direction of the AIA Group.

Among the pieces is the big role that technology, digital and analytics will play in the conduct of business, especially in the development of new offerings for the customer, service delivery to customers, and supporting the distribution partners.

This, together with the shift in focus from corporate social responsibility to the more holistic Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) approach, are all being done with the end goal of making sustainability embedded in the conduct of business while ensuring the strength and stability of AIA Philippines in the long term. 

“Our purpose is central to everything we do. It drives the transformation that we want to achieve because we want to make sure that years from now, our customers will continue to enjoy the benefits of protection and long-term savings that we will provide them and their families while making sure that we are making a real, positive impact in their lives as well as to the communities we serve,” Ang shared. 

AIA Philippines may have found the secret to success, with a clear focus on customers and driven by its purpose. 

In today’s uncertain and fast-changing world, a company that puts the needs of its customers while adapting to this dynamic, progressive environment is the key to a strong and stable future.

Indeed, AIA Philippines is getting itself ready, making sure it will still be standing many years from now, fulfilling its mission of racing against risk to protect every Filipino family and empowering them to live Healthier, Longer, Better Lives.

Click here for more information on AIA Philippines, visit AIA Philippines’ Facebook page, email [email protected], or call (02) 8528-2000.