BDO Life touts Filipinos’ ‘Plan B’ post-pandemic

By Joseph Bernard A. Marzan

BDO Life, the bancassurance firm under the umbrella of BDO Unibank, one of the country’s biggest financial institutions, views Filipino life after the two-year COVID-19 pandemic as the opportune time for the people to get a ‘Plan B’ for themselves and their families.

The firm’s President and Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Renato Vergel de Dios reported that their traditional life insurance products have comprised 75 percent of their total 2023 premiums or an estimated 15 percent jump from 2022.

Traditional life insurance products focus on benefits upon the life and/or death of an insured person, and most of the time it may also include sickness and accidents.

De Dios attributed the jump to perceived notions of mortality during the course of the COVID-19 pandemic, which saw 66,864 as of January 2024 according to the Department of Health.

These deaths and infections, de Dios said, pushed the public to avail of life insurance products for guaranteed protection of their health and their financial assets as well.

“As fund values of variable life insurance rise and fall with the economic tide, traditional life insurance has proven to be a safe haven over time. Slowly but surely, Filipinos are realizing the importance of having a safety net, a Plan B in the form of life insurance protection that serves as a solid foundation on which their financial planning model rests. A solid protection foundation ensures their loved ones’ security amid life’s inevitable risks,” de Dios said.

He also underscored BDO Life’s reach, which he touts as its current competitive advantage, given that it may be availed at BDO branches across the country.

“We benefit from BDO’s extensive branch reach—the largest in the country—to offer a customizable Plan B that will meet the budget and unique needs of Filipinos,” he said.

They also reported on Thursday, April 4, that it has become one of the universal banking company’s growth drivers post-pandemic.

They cited Insurance Commission (IC) data on new business annual premium equivalent (NBAPE) as of December 31, 2023, which indicated BDO Life as the 4th-highest performing life insurance company in the country, with P3.66 billion in traditional life insurance and P453.08 million in variable life insurance.

The NBAPE is a performance metric used by insurance companies, which determines its revenue based on traditional and variable life insurance products sold to its consumers, based on the first year premium plus 10 percent single premium.

Variable life insurance, in contrast to traditional life insurance, is more broad in scope as it is linked to investments, which guarantee higher returns upon life and/or death.

It is the only Philippine-based life insurance company in the top 10 of the IC’s NBAPE data in 2023.

In his recorded message, BDO Unibank President and CEO Nestor Tan calls life insurance as a ‘good complement’ to their chief banking services business.

Tan believes that the bank’s existence and its extensive management experience, coupled with a clear value proposition, will help the firm bear fruit among Filipino consumers.

“Everybody saves for a reason, and for some reason or another, if that savings is interrupted, you need life insurance to cover for it. And that’s why we call it ‘Plan B’, because we see it as a natural complement to banking,” Tan said.

“Why did we venture into it? Because I think we believe in the value of proposition, and we have what it takes to really make a success out of it. The brand, the distribution network, and to a certain extent, the brand expertise,” he added.

Valuing the financial freedom that BDO customers enjoy, BDO Life may serve as a safety net for families to maintain their financial independence.

The insurance firm completes the universal bank’s range of financial services to constantly find ways to serve their customers, keeping true to their tagline of ‘We Find Ways’. ###