BDO Life starts campaign to promote life insurance | VG Cabuag – Business Mirror

BDO Life Assurance Co. Inc. has launched a campaign called “Plan B” for the public to appreciate the value and use of life insurance, especially during the pandemic.

Renato A. Vergel De Dios, president and CEO of BDO Life, explained “Plan A” consists of savings and investments while “Plan B” takes the form of life insurance, which takes into effect when the first one fails.

“Life insurance is your Plan B, the safety net that will enable your family to recover from the grief after you pass away without being burdened by immediate financial worries,” Vergel De Dios said. “It is in those crucial moments when BDO Life unleashes Plan B to help your family and keep their financial dignity intact.”

The company, a unit of the Sy family-led BDO Unibank Inc., has not yet launched a product. But it wants first to campaign the use of life insurance among Filipinos, which has remained low. Data showed that life insurance penetration in the country fell from 1.75 percent in 2015 to 1.63 percent in 2018.

“This industry has not communicated enough how a life insurance purchase is an expression of love for family and responsibility to provide for them beyond this life,” Vergel De Dios said.

Among adult Filipinos, it was found that the total life insurance ownership was only at 9 percent. Common reasons why people don’t buy life insurance are: they can’t afford it; they don’t see the need; they get nothing from it; and, they don’t trust insurance companies, he said.

Insurance products are mostly geared towards the middle-income earners.

He said the pandemic may have pushed people to buy life insurance products as the probability of dying unexpectedly was higher due to Covid-19.

“The first quarter of 2021, we overshot what we were doing pre-pandemic. That will give you and idea that more people are more concerned,” he said.

“As we move to (Alert) level 1, I anticipate that there will be an uptick (on life insurance). There’s this pent-up desire maybe to (spend), there’s also liquidity in the market place for those who did not lose their jobs and for those who continued that did not spend on anything,” Vergel de dios said. He said, however, mobility curbs due to another stricter lockdown to slow down the infection rate may again dampen all of that growth prospects.

BDO Life said it has slowly advanced its standing in the industry. During the third quarter last year, the insurer said it joined the top five companies in terms of new sales measured in annual premium equivalents, posting a 61 percent year-on-year hike during the period versus the industry’s 16-percent growth.