Insurer localizes solutions to meet needs of Filipinos

FAST-RISING insurer EastWest Ageas Insurance creates products tailor-fit for the needs of Filipinos, says company president and chief executive Sjoerd Smeets.

EastWest Ageas, he said, aims to provide simple and flexible life insurance options by localizing the policies to adapt to market demands.

“When people are young you don’t think so much still about your health. But as age progresses, people are more impacted by this. So it’s really an investment for the future. From a business perspective, we do this because we want to sell more policies, but we also want to protect more Filipinos against anything difficult that can happen in their life,” he said.

EastWest Ageas is offering products created for the Filipino market on life or non-life coverage, each distinctly appropriate and with much emphasis on health, noting the high demand from Filipinos looking for health related products to protect them against critical illnesses.

The insurance company started operating in the Philippines in 2015 under the brand Troo and has recently embarked on a rebranding journey in 2022 to become what is now known as EastWest Ageas. The refreshing change sought to carry on the heritage of both parent companies - the Philippines most trusted finance solutions provider EastWest Bank and Belgium’s largest operating insurance company, Ageas.

“EastWest Bank is among the country’s banking experts and Ageas is an award-winning international insurance firm. Two strong names in their respective fields - banking and insurance - that merged together to help Filipinos plan a better tomorrow.

Our partnership with EastWest Bank, one of the country’s leading companies with over 400+ branches, and Ageas, an award-winning international insurance group with a heritage spanning 200 years, ensures that we offer our customers solutions designed with their needs in mind. Our solutions are easy to understand, simple to manage, and work with your budget,” said Smeets who has worked for Ageas in different markets in Europe since 2012.

Smeets started his career as an actuary in the Netherlands. He held various senior managerial positions in actuarial, risk, and underwriting in five countries, while focused on stimulating the connection with commercial and clientfocused areas. His most recent position before coming to the Philippines was as chief risk officer and member of the Ageas Portugal executive committee.

Customers are the core of every business, and Smeets primary goal is to reinforce customer-centricity throughout the organization.

“If we keep improving our approach in this area, we will be able to better understand our customers’ needs. As a result, we will be able to provide financial solutions that address those needs,” he said.

He expressed hope that through EastWest Ageas, he could help more Filipinos with their financial planning for a better tomorrow.

Near-term goals

Setting goals allows leaders to stay focused on what matters most. Smeets believes it is critical to develop a vision for what needs to be done.

“Leadership is about providing a strategic direction to people and empowering them to perform. I enjoy encouraging others and assisting them in reaching their goals. And under my leadership, we will step up our efforts to help more Filipinos plan a better tomorrow so that they can live their best lives today,” he said.

EastWest Ageas is bullish about its operations in the Philippines. It aims to be among the country’s top 10 performing insurance companies in 2023. Latest data from the Insurance Commission showed EastWest landing at 12th spot among the best performing insurance companies in 2022, two notches up from 14th place in 2021 and 34th when it started operating in the Philippines seven years ago. Moving up to the top 5 position is the company’s ultimate goal within the next five years.

The company has an active portfolio of more than 250,000 policies with 130 insurance agents as of April 2023. It plans to close the year with as much as 1,000 agents to increase its presence not only in Metro Manila but in select cities and provinces across the Philippines.

In September 2022, EastWest Ageas opened its first agency house within the central business district of Makati City and a second in Ortigas, Mandaluyong City. The insurance firm is building a distribution channel to sustain gains with the launch of the Agency Community.

The company has also expanded its line of investment solutions with the addition of the Dollar Edge variable unit-linked plan and its first critical illness product, Life Essentials, that covers up to 40 types of critical illnesses in the Philippines.

“We started in the Manila area because if you want to start agency business, you want to start that closer to home, easier to manage, but also with a wider range because Metro Manila is a very big area with a lot of potential customers. But we’re also expanding outside of Manila so we have quite ambitious targets for the agency channel. We want to be expanding that over the next couple of years to have a relevant channel for us to support the Philippine market,” Smeets said. Keeping abreast with competition

By the end of July 2023, EastWest Ageas is going live on a new core system that has a lot of benefits to clients as it will be completely digital. “So customers need not sign any papers. Everything can be done in a digital way and we will also improve the sale process limiting the hours spent from having an introduction to having the final presentation which normally would take 2 hours. This new sales process that we have developed is really there to support the interaction between the adviser and the customer. Our sales agents can actually sell a policy and have the discussion with the customer in 20 minutes,” Smeets said.

He said the entire process is a safe procedure that is backed by a host of security standards from its IT security team. “We did tests where we allowed specialized companies and see if they can penetrate our systems, but they never did. I would say that digital sales and being in the clouds clearly is a very safe way to do this,” he said.

From when EastWest Ageas started operating in the Philippines, its systems are already in the cloud - accessible from any location, anywhere in the country. A reliable internet provider is the key to having an efficient and seamless connection to customers where transactions can be done remotely.

Insurance outlook

Smeets said there’s a strong growth potential for the Philippines, given how invested Filipinos are in their health and future. He noted how quickly the local insurance industry bounced back from the effects of pandemic to revive general businesses.

“It’s one of the reasons that we are here. We don’t enter very mature markets where the insurance sector is already very saturated. So we look for growth opportunity. And if you look to the Philippines with 110 million inhabitants, the market penetration of life insurance returns are between 2 to 3 percent. There’s a lot of opportunity for growth and that will be fueled by gradually increasing spending power of the Philippine population, gradually increasing more knowledge about financial literacy, savings and protecting for the future,” he said.

Smeets sees a huge demand for medical coverage, particularly for critical illness. With what science has advanced in the last few years in terms of breakthroughs in the medical field, the rate at which critical illnesses is growing is almost at par and sometime surpasses medical advancements.

Othel V. Campos

DENR, Nestlé PH and stakeholders support law promoting circular economy

WITH the enactment of RA 11898, also known as the Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) Act of 2022, the Philippines moves one step closer to advancing a circular economy and addressing the country’s plastic waste problem towards a more sustainable future.

Global food and beverage leader Nestlé Philippines is among the early, if not the earliest, advocates and adopters of EPR in the country. It has actively campaigned for the passage of the EPR Act through sustained dialogue with government policymakers, and active participation in the legislative process. Two years before the law was enacted, Nestlé PH had already started voluntarily practicing EPR through its initiatives to attain plastic neutrality.

“Plastic waste is a global problem in which everybody has a stake. Through collaboration, we will find workable solutions. This roundtable is a collaborative effort among policymakers, business leaders, government agencies, and change makers. We have come together to discuss how we can accelerate the transition to a waste-free, circular economy. In particular, a major challenge is the lack of waste management infrastructure in the country,” said Nestlé senior vice president and head of corporate affairs Jose Uy III during a roundtable dialogue with stakeholders and the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR).

The DENR said RA 11898 is a good start and a wiser approach to waste reduction that allows producers to take on environmental responsibility and improves the equity in the process of waste management.

“EPR is proven to address packaging collection through recycling meaningfully and through various EPR schemes that require companies to pay for the collection, sorting and recycling of their plastic packaging,” said DENR secretary Ma. Antonia Yulo-Loyzaga.

The law requires large-scale companies and enterprises to be environmen-

Fastfood conglomerate CMO enjoys early retirement at 50

DONDI Gomez, the chief marketing officer of the Jollibee Group of Companies took an early retirement at age 50 to enjoy life as a regular family man.

As the top marketing guy, Gomez established the company’s Global Marketing Division and institutionalized the “Jollibee Group Way of Marketing” that has driven the success of the restaurant conglomerate’s 16 brands across 34 countries around the world, including the Philippines.

“It is one of the greatest honors of my life to have been part of the Jollibee Group’s global success story in the last 15 years. Although I am retiring early to spend more time with my loved ones, I am confident that I am leaving the Jollibee Group in the capable hands of world-class marketeers who will take the company to greater heights with the marketing capabilities we have successfully instituted for more than a decade,” he said.

tally responsible throughout the life cycle of their products―from manufacturing, usage, and post-consumer stage―by establishing EPR programs and mechanisms that ensure effective reduction, recovery, treatment, and recycling and/or disposal of waste, especially plastic packaging.

Gomez led the Jollibee Brand’s International Marketing Strategy, elevating Jollibee to a global brand with substantial local mainstream patronage in North America, Europe, Middle East, and Asia. Before that, Gomez served as the company’s youngest corporate officer and executive team member soon after he joined the conglomerate in 2008.

He was also instrumental to the success of acquired businesses such as Mang Inasal, Red Ribbon, Burger King, Highlands Coffee Vietnam, Yonghe King China, and Smashburger USA, to name a few. Through his marketing leadership, many of Jollibee Group’s brands have become market leaders in their respective categories and geographies.

More recently, Gomez led the marketing pivot strategy during the pandemic, which was critical in the Jollibee Group’s strong recovery in 2021 and recordbreaking business performance in 2022.

“Dondi’s gift of marketing leadership, collaborative approach to problem solving, and compassion for our people have been instrumental to Jollibee Group’s success in the past fifteen years,. I am deeply thankful to Dondi for his devotion to the company, our customers, and our people. I wish him well on his long-planned adventure with his family,” said Jollibee group chief executive officer Ernesto Tanmantiong.