Over P13 billion worth of premiums were paid to microinsurance companies by the year-end 2023, increasing by 17.3 percent from P11 billion in 2002.
The Insurance Commission said that the significant increase in premium collection could be attributed to the across-the-board increase in premium collection by mutual benefit associations (MBA), and life and non-life insurance companies.
Based on the IC data, the total premiums gathered by MBA surged by 10.7 percent to P7.4 billion from P6.7 billion recorded in the previous year.
Meanwhile, life insurance also swelled by 14.4 percent to P3.6 billion from P3.2 billion collected previously while non-life insurance reached P13.5 billion, up from P11.5 billion in 2022.
As of 2023, the number of lives insured under microinsurance policies reached 56.62 million Filipino lives.
Premiums from the MBAs had the the highest number of insurances, with a total of 28.6 million Filipino lives insured, followed by the life insurance sector with 15.64 million, and the non-life insurance sector with 12.37 million, according to IC.
Microinsurance products offer financial protection to low-income earners to protect them against various risks such as death, injury, and damage to livelihood or property.
Its premium collection can be purchased at around 7.5 percent of the minimum wage in Metro Manila.
On the other hand, the IC has earlier doubled the benefits that may be claimed by third parties under compulsory motor vehicle liability insurance (CMVLI) to P200,000 from the previous limit of P100,000.
Likewise, death indemnity, including burial and funeral expense indemnity, was also increased to P200,000 from the previous indemnity amount of P70,000 and burial and funeral expense indemnity of P30,000.
No-fault indemnity also increased from P15,000 to P30,000 for any claim of death or bodily injury sustained by a passenger without the necessity of proving fault or negligence.
Further, the IC earlier reported that the total premium income from pre-need companies amounted to P22.73 billion as of year-end 2023, translating to an increase of 7.3 percent increase from the P21.18 billion premiums collected in 2022.
The pre-need industry's net income also surged to P2.09 billion, up by 385 percent from the net income in 2022, which amounted only to ₱429.6 million.