Insular Life Assurance Co. Ltd., the largest and only mutual Filipino life insurance company in the country, posted a 62-percent increase in consolidated net income in 2019 to P4.85 billion from P3 billion a year ago, driven by earnings in strategic equities, rental income and other investments.
Executive chairman Nina Aguas said InLife’s growth underscored the company’s pursuit of disciplined investing and operational excellence aimed at sustained profitability.
Consolidated member’s equity or net worth also rose 8.4 percent to P43.92 billion from 40.51 billion in 2018.
Consolidated assets expanded 6 percent to P143.2 billion from P135.1 billion in 2018.
“Our sustained investments in technology and in our people, enabled us to keep our operating expenses in check, driving our net income up” Insular Life president and chief executive Mona Lisa de la Cruz said.
She added long-term view was a key investment strategy of the company.
“Our flagship Equity Fund and Balanced Fund both continued to outperform other VUL funds in terms of 10-year performance as of end-2019. The Equity Fund posted a 10-year average return of 10.8 percent, beating even the barometer Philippine Stock Exchange Index’s 9.9 percent. Our Balanced Fund, meanwhile, recorded a 10-year return of 7.4 percent,” De la Cruz said.
The company in 2019 launched innovative products catering to the needs of different markets. SheCares, for one, is a 3-in-1 solution that addresses the unique health, protection, and investment needs of women.
The Basic Cover Plus and Solid products series address the protection from the most basic with features such as double insurance coverage, and money back, to the more sophisticated products that offer maximum protection and fund build-up to generate more living benefits.
Most recently, the company offered InLife’s Peso Global Technology Fund–the first themed fund in the Philippines anchored on the performance of companies around the world that benefit from technological advancements and improvements. The goal is to achieve long-term capital growth with the world’s tech leaders.
De la Cruz also said in 2019, the company released P11.1 billion in gross benefits and claims, a 35-percent increase over P8.2 billion paid in 2018.
Since the enhanced community quarantine was declared mid-March, InLife used alternative work arrangements for its employees and took advantage of its end-to-end digital platform to continue its operations.
“In this global pandemic, we are assuring our policyholders that all claims and benefits due them will be released as fast as we can. Our processes are digital so even our work from home arrangements will not impede our fast service and timely release of benefits,” De la Cruz said.
