ASIA commenced operations there in 2014 . Despite this , the company is already having a dramatic impact . “ In the Philippines , there are a lot of terror activities and insurance companies were not covering those . We became the first company to offer financial coverage for this through our Peace plan options . That created a ripple in the industry ,” comments Umali .
Peace is not the only coverage plan to disrupt the Philippine insurance industry . “ Another one is the Set for Health product . In medical insurance , there are normally long list of exclusions – for example , no extreme sports . We cover those . We want you to forget about the worries of extreme sports and let us do the worrying for you ,” explains Umali . “ Additionally , we offer Fight Plan – this covers you upon diagnosis of any type of cancer at any stage . When this product was launched it raised a lot of eyebrows . The industry does not cover such critical illnesses , but we were the first .
“ These medical financial products are disrupting the industry and others are now asking , ‘ How is this working for FWD ?’ It ’ s eating up their share ,” Umali continues . “ Three years ago , we were nobody ; last year we were already number 12 in the Philippines . This year we intend to break into the top 10 . Our track record speaks for itself . We are getting noticed , not just in terms of revenue and customers , but also ranking .”
A CHALLENGER BRAND Some competitors have begun to adopt FWD Life Insurance ’ s practices as their own . “ We look at our competitors . We have seen their processes and found some very similar looking e-commerce functions to ours . The best praise is that if we are being copied we are clearly doing something good ,” notes Umali .
In fact , such actions by competitors only increases FWD Life Insurance ’ s drive . “ It makes us realise we should not rest on our laurels ,” Umali states . “ We shouldn ’ t forget our start-up mentality , we should remain a
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