A study on the Philippine life insurance industry for the period 1995-2000

This paper, A study on the Philippine life insurance industry , which determined the overall performance of the forty-two life insurance companies in the Philippine life insurance industry covered a six-year period from 1995 to 2000. The objectives were: (1) to understand the nature of products and operations of the industry, (2) to identify industry problems namely: marketing, technical, management, financial, and socio-economic, (3) to analyze the internal and external factors affecting the performance of the industry through the use of market, technical, management and ownership, and financial analysis. The research design used was a descriptive research. This study focused on analyzing the condition or performance of the industry where tools such as Michael Porter\u27s five forces, SWOT analysis, operating ratios, and NAIC financial ratios were utilized. This paper examined the market, management and ownership, technical, financial aspect, which consisted the internal analysis of the industry. On the other hand, external conditions, such as the socio-economic aspect and government regulations of the life insurance industry were also discussed in this paper. Discussions about the different aspects of the industry were made in order to have a better grasp of the industry. A life insurance company is a service organization, which directly commits itself to provide support and service to its customers. Thus, the industry offered variety of products that would suite the need of an individual, because not all clients have the same needs. The lack of consciousness and the ability to purchase life insurance products remain a problem despite the appearance of mass advertising and promotions. The Filipino population mostly do not see life insurance as a necessity or as a priority that they initially obtain their basic necessities such as food, clothing, and shelter before life insurance. Life insurance products are perceived to be costly making it hard for the Filipinos in general to avail of such policies. The heavy taxation imposed by the government further caused life policy contracts to be beyond the reach of the Filipinos. Filipinos still remain to be not insurance conscious mainly because of poverty, which comprises more than 50% of the Philippine population. Moreover, most Filipinos still do not see the value and importance of life insurance products and its benefits. The researchers have conducted that there are a lot more challenges and opportunities that the industry has yet to catch up. They also recommended to further promote life insurance awareness to create more market demand and industry improvement