Philippines’ COVID-19 insurance claims balloons to $240m

Bulk of the claims were paid from January to September last year.

Philippines’ COVID-19-related insurance claims swelled to over P12.12b ($240m) since the pandemic started in 2020, the Insurance Commission reported.

The bulk of the claims, which is around P8.23b ($160m) were paid between January and September 2021, more than double the COVID-19-related payouts in 2020.

The IC surveyed 126 of its 147 regulated entities and found out that life insurers paid P3.99b ($78m) in pandemic-related payouts or around 48% of the payouts last year. Health maintenance organizations (HMOs) payout amounted to P3.68 ($72) or about 45% of COVID-19 claims. Meanwhile, mutual benefit associations (MBAs) paid P377.1m ($7.37m) from January to September 2021.

Despite challenges, insurance commissioner Dennis Funa said that insurers remained financially resilient despite the pandemic and its risk as well as the substantial increase in pandemic claims.

“The figures we obtained reflect that the claims paid increased drastically from February to April 2021, dipped slightly during the months of May, June and July, and then spiked in August to September of the same year,” Funa said.