Philippines First Insurance Group looks to cater to millennials, Gen Zs

TANCO-LED Philippines First Insurance Group (PFI Group) is planning to launch products to cater to younger generations as it looks to increase its millennial and Generation Z clients, who now make up the majority of the country’s workforce.

“I think what we want to do is to take a look at all of the needs and to try to come up with a platform that will make it easier for the Gen Z, Gen Y to see what products they want, and at the same time, looking at all of our different products that we have in the four companies to come up with maybe bundled products so then it will be easier for them to understand. If they purchase an insurance [policy], they can be covered for the needs that they have,” PFI Group President and Chief Executive Officer Jaeger L. Tanco said at a media briefing on Monday.

The Tanco Group of Companies’ Philippines First Insurance Group has four brands, namely, health maintenance organization PhilhealthCare, Inc. (PhilCare), nonlife insurer Philippines First Insurance Co., Inc. (PhilFirst), life insurer Philippine Life Financial Assurance Corp. (PhilLife), and pre-need firm PhilPlans First, Inc. (PhilPlans).

A recent study conducted by the PFI Group for PhilLife showed that interest in insurance among millennials and Gen Zs was high, with 43.3% of 400 respondents nationwide aged 18 to 43 years old saying they are very interested and 35% saying they are interested.

Policies that protect family members were respondents’ top priority at 83.3%, followed by the policyholder (78.5%), and then their financial assets (54.8%). Almost half also preferred policies that protected their homes (48%), personal belongings (40.8%), and business or professional assets (27.8%).

For unforeseen events, the top five preferences of respondents were coverage for health emergencies (77.3%), accidents (76.3%), loss of life (67%), fire or property damage (60.8%), and disability (60%).

The study also found that the top three barriers for getting insurance were not having enough money (66.9%), having other financial priorities (41.9%), and that insurance products are too expensive (29.8%).

Mr. Tanco said PFI Group will introduce products with lower pricing and modified benefits to appeal to the younger generation and tap underserved markets.

“There are some markets that can afford higher pricing, then there are markets that may not be able to afford as much. Of course, there will also be a little change in benefits when that happens, because you don’t expect someone to pay higher or lower to get the same benefits as someone that pays higher,” he said.

“I think what we want to do is to give them the right pricing that will cater to what they need… We’ll come up with products that will target a certain segment taking into consideration their capability,” Mr. Tanco added.

PFI Group will focus on retail products rather than corporate, he said.  

PHILPLANS
Meanwhile, PFI Group’s pre-need unit PhilPlans hopes to rebound from the P546.82-million net loss it posted last year as the company looks to focus on other product lines and as they hope that financial markets perform better.

“PhilPlans has a trust fund. What they buy, part of it goes into the trust fund. The trust fund is invested. When you see red, it doesn’t mean that the company is in the red. It simply means that the investments that we have had are not performing well,” PhilPlans Vice Chairman Monico V. Jacob said at the same briefing.

“The equity market is down, and we have about 20% invested in the equity market. That affects our financial statements. The fixed-income instruments, the interest rates are not that high. Consequently, the fixed-income instruments you invested are not generating the kind of returns you want. This means that the trust fund of the company is being affected by the kind of investments we have made,” Mr. Jacob said.

PhilPlans will focus on selling memorial plans and making them more affordable to help offset low sales of education plans, he said.

“The education plan has not been a very popular pre-need product. What we are concentrating on right now are the memorial product and the pension product,” Mr. Jacob said. “We’re looking at making it a little bit more affordable because at the moment, we’re selling a lot of plans geared towards heritage because we own the crematory there and the mortuary there. But we feel that we should come up with memorial plans which are more affordable, and that’s what our product group is working on.”

He added that PhilPlans has about 300 partner funeral parlors. — Aaron Michael C. Sy