By JAMES A. LOYOLA Aboitiz Equity Ventures, Inc. (AEV) and Singapore Life Private Limited (Singlife) have teamed up to establish a new digital life insurance company in the country. In a disclosure to the Philippine Stock Exchange, AEV said the joint venture, Singlife Philippines, is majority owned by Singlife (65 percent) with partners Di-Firm (20 percent), and AEV (15 percent). Singlife Philippines aims to make insurance and financial products more accessible to Filipinos nationwide. “With Singlife’s unique fintech expertise in digitalizing life insurance offers and AEV’s strategic position across industries in the local market, Singlife Philippines is poised to claim its share in the local life insurance market,” AEV said. According to the Philippine Insurance Commission, the life insurance market has shown significant growth over the past five years with total premium income growing 9 percent per annum and sales of new policies growing at approximately 15 percent per year. However, the penetration of individual life insurance is still low at around 6 percent of the insurable market. This is expected to increase to 12 to 18 percent in the medium-term, fueled by an emerging segment of people purchasing policies for the first time. A substantial part of this segment consists of people between 25 to 50 years old, with net income between ₱25,000 to ₱50,000 per month and a preference for online and mobile services. For this new generation of mobile-first consumers already booking rides and purchasing everyday goods online, Singlife Philippines believes it can also fulfill their financial planning needs through a mobile app. Singlife Philippines’ vision is to unlock the potential of money for everyone by offering innovative financial solutions that help people manage, grow and protect their money distributed according to their preferences.