I joined Etiqa Philippines in 2019, an insurance company, after almost a decade in banking. I find this career shift ironic considering that I wasn’t a believer of insurance which was further aggravated by an unfortunate incident that happened in 2066.

I accompanied my father to visit an insurance firm supposedly to receive a claim for a memorial plan of my grandmother. It turned out that the visit was just a bait-and-switch ploy by the insurance agents to lure us to their office to sell additional insurance products – a modus operandi capitalizing on the emotional vulnerability of losing a loved one. This experience turned me from a non-believer to a detractor.

But through the years as I gained broader understanding of the value of financial planning, I also started to appreciate the value of insurance.

I am here to share with you three realizations that transformed me from being a detractor into a believer, an advocate even, on the value of insurance:

Based on the 2019 Financial Inclusion survey of Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas, 55 million Filipino adults or 77% of the total adult population do not have insurance citing lack of money as primary reason. The irony here is that insurance actually functions as leverage that can magnify the capabilities of limited funds. With insurance, we can turn a small amount of money, the premiums, into new sources of funds in the future in cases of unfortunate events affecting an insured.

Purchasing insurance is like taking a cab when commuting. Instead of spending enormous amounts of time and energy walking from one place to the other, we pay a small amount so that a capable public carrier could bring us to where we want to go, with lesser time and effort from our part. Insurance works in a similar way - paying a premium to an insurance company protects you from potentially incurring large financial losses in the future -- in essence you are outsourcing personal risk management!

We all have a lot of things to worry about in life. Wouldn’t it be great if there’s a way to alleviate some of our mental burden? There is! For a small premium fee, our insurance provider allows us peace of mind by extending financial buffer for risks which may result to major financial losses. Our future self will definitely thank our present self for this.

In selecting an insurance partner, there are key factors to look into. Availability of products that fit your needs, financial resiliency especially during a pandemic, plus its network of clients and partners. And I am proud to say that Etiqa Philippines has all these attributes,and more!

To learn more about Etiqa Philippines and its unified insurance offerings, please visit our website at www.etiqa.com.ph, like our Facebook page and join us as we continue to turn more Filipinos in to believers in the value of insurance.