Cebuana Lhuillier expands into microinsurance

Cebuana Lhuillier Group, originally operating as pawnshop chain, is aggressively expanding its insurance and remittance businesses this year by offering new microinsurance products and opening remittance service centers abroad.

 

The group targets to expand its insurance business by 10 percent by offering life microinsurance, taking advantage of the government's goal for the sector, Cebuana Lhuillier Insurance Solutions (CLIS) general manager Jonathan Batangan said in a briefing with reporters Thursday.

 

"We hope we can surpass the 14 million COCs (certificates of cover). We expect a growth of 10 percent, riding along the estimated 13- to 15-percent expansion of the microinsurance industry," Batangan said.

 

In 2013, Cebuana Lhuillier issued 14 million certificates of covers to about 4 million Filipinos. 

 

Based on data from Work Bank, the Finance department earlier said the Philippines is at the top of emerging economies in Asia in terms of microinsurance promotion, with 20.4 percent of its population insured by end-2013.

 

With that, the government set a goal to have 27 million poor Filipinos covered by microinsurance by 2016, the Insurance Commission said.

 

"We intend to come out with a variant product a life and health microinsurance with (premiums of) from P50 to P100 within the year," Batangan said.

 

"The idea is to bring it to the grassroots level as the Philippines lies in a very vulnerable...geographical location in terms of natural calamities," he added.

 

CLIS is a subsidiary of PJLI Lhuillier Inc. which operates pawnshops, remittance, non-life insurance, electronic loading, bills payment and collection services, retail , hotel and restaurant management, information technology management, sports, and property management.

 

Currently, Cebuana Lhuillier offers 15 non-life insurance products which include motor car product insurance, fire insurance, marine cargo/hull insurance, bonds, and engineering insurance.

 

For its remittance business, Cebuana Lhuillier Services Corp. (CLSC) general manager Noel Fernando Cristal said plans to open more branches abroad to cut costs in operations and streamline revenues.

 

"It's going to be cheaper for the center and the receiver as you take out all the intermediaries. It also brings us more flexibility to really get revenues," he said.

 

Last October, Cebuana Lhuillier opened its first international branch in Hong Kong.

 

"We'd like our presence to be known in abroad. We're looking at Oceania and this includes Australia, New Zealand and the Pacific within this year, maybe [in the] third or fourth quarter," Cristal said. — JDS, GMA News