Sun Life on track to hit client base goal

LIFE INSURER Sun Life of Canada (Philippines), Inc. (Sun Life) is on track to hit its target of serving five million clients by 2020, with the firm looking poised to sustain the double-digit growth booked in its customer base as of October until 2017 amid expectations of ending 2016 with around 1.9 million policyholders.

“This year we grew 26% in terms of number of clients, so we’re on track to hit the five million [clients by 2020],” Rizalina G. Mantaring, president and chief executive officer of Sun Life, told reporters on the sidelines of a media launch last week when asked for an update on the firm’s five-year growth plan dubbed as “Rise PH.”

The country’s top life insurer in terms of premium income launched last June its new fiveyear growth plan, under which the company targeted to double its premium income by 2020 through digitization efforts; expand its client base to five million policyholders in five years; and balance its business such that 50% is located in Metro Manila and 50% in provincial areas.

CONTINUED GROWTH

“So we started with 1.5 [million clients and that’s] 26% [ growth]... By end of the year, we should be near around 1.9 [million clients] already because year-to-date as of end- October, the number of clients is now up by 26%,” Ms. Mantaring added.

Asked for the number of clients Sun Life is eyeing for 2017, Ms Mantaring said: “If we want to continue to reach to hit the five million [target], we’ll have to keep growing at maybe 27% a year to hit it.”

“[The] 1.9 [million clients this year] by next year should already be more than 2.5 [million clients.] So maganda naman yung trend (the trend looks good) so far in terms of clients,” she added.

Earlier last week, Sun Life signed a partnership to offer its “affordable” financial products to the five million clients of payments and money-transfer firm Universal Storefront Services Corp. (USSC), set to be rolled out officially by January next year.

The partnership will contribute to the life insurer’s client base, Ms. Mantaring said last week, as it will help the insurer “reach out to a lot of Filipinos who are not insured.”

Sun Life also provided free group life insurance to the clients of mass housing developer 8990 Holdings, Inc. through their memorandum of agreement last September.

For the fifth consecutive year, Sun Life placed first among the country’s life insurers in terms of total premiums last year as it saw its net premium income reach P32.8 billion, higher compared to its 2014 level at P30.7 billion. It ranked second among life insurance companies in terms of assets when it posted P180.848 billion in assets in 2015.

The insurance industry saw its total premium income for the third quarter slip to P169.56 billion, 1.65% lower from its yearago level due to the life insurance sector’s poor performance during the period. •