The Manila Times

Opportunit­ies abound

- MAYVELIN U. CARABALLO MAYVELIN U. CARABALLO

Philippine­s’ life insurance market, but the number of insurers has decreased because of regulation­s that that promote market consolidat­ion. This trend should reduce competitio­n in the industry,” Moody’s claimed.

It also emphasized that the country’s strong economic growth would continue to support insurance demands.

“Our baseline scenario assumes that real GDP ( gross domestic product) growth will stay at 6-7 percent, which has prevailed over the past decade,” the debt watcher said.

It also said that, despite ample growth opportunit­ies, the industry has to deal with a number of constraint­s.

Moody’s noted that investment­linked policies dominate product mix, while growth in traditiona­l life policies, which typically contain more protection elements than variable life policies, have

“This suggests [that] the industry

Bid forms, conditions of bid, and the required format of the special power of attorney and - free from www.pdic. loaded for gov.ph.

“PDIC reserves the right to withdraw without prior notice the properties offered for sale any time before the deadline is still lagging in expanding its core protection function. The penetratio­n rate for life insurance was a modest 1.23 percent in 2016,” it said.

The credit watchdog also said the lack of long-dated assets hindered growth in long- duration insurance products, revealing that total bonds outstandin­g accounted for only 35 percent of Philippine GDP in 2017, compared with 81 percent for Singapore and 95 percent for Malaysia.

“This led to insurers’ higher holdings on loans for asset and liability duration matching, and stock and fund investment­s for backing their large in-force book of variable life policies,” it added.

According to Moody’s, underwriti­ng profit for non- life insurers has led to a high dependence on investment income, which also implies that insurers’ for submission agency said.

The proceeds will be added to the pool of liquid assets of closed banks for distributi­on to uninsured depositors and other creditors in accordance with the rules on concurrenc­e and preference of credits. of bids,” the

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