Insurance sector’s first-quarter profit grew by 7%
The Philippine insurance industry continued to post higher profits in the first quarter this year on the back of fatter premium collections and a small decline in payouts.
Latest data from the Insurance Commission (IC) showed the industry-wide net income went up by 7.09 percent year-on-year to P15.30 billion.
Total collection of premiums across life and nonlife insurers as well as mutual benefit associations (MBA) jumped by 14.41 percent to P124.17 billion. The IC said insurance density—or the average spending of each individual on protection plans—rose by 13.4 percent to P1,094.94 per capita.
Premiums represented 1.89 percent of the country’s gross domestic product (GDP) in the first quarter. That figure, also known as insurance penetration, was slightly better than the year-ago rate of 1.78 percent.
“The increase in insurance penetration is due to the faster growth in premiums than the GDP expansion of 7.8 percent, at current prices, during this review period,” said Insurance Commissioner Reynaldo Regalado.
“The growth in insurance density was mainly driven by a rise in total premiums that exceeded the population growth rate of 0.87 percent during the same period,” Regalado said.
One-percent decline
Meanwhile, cash outflows from benefit payments slightly declined by 1 percent to P38.86 billion.
The IC said the figures were based on quarterly financial statistics that 127 companies submitted. And those data showed that the total assets of insurers and MBAs grew by 4.13 percent to P2.48 trillion by the end of the first quarter.
Total liabilities likewise went up by 3.06 percent to P1.98 trillion.
The life insurance industry netted P10.83 billion in the first quarter, up by 12.22 percent. The total premium income went up by 13.96 percent to P99.9 billion.
