Insurance claims related to COVID-19 amounted to P2.93 billion in the first quarter of this year, with life insurance benefits accounting for 61 percent or P1.79 billion of the payouts, data from the Insurance Commission (IC) showed.
In a report to outgoing Finance Secretary Carlos Dominguez III, IC chief Dennis Funa said that 32 percent or P948 million of the claims were from health maintenance organizations (HMOs).
Non-life insurance payouts accounted for five percent or P145 million, while mutual benefit associations cornered two percent or P49.4 million.
“These claims were for death, hospitalization, outpatient, and other benefits,” Funa said in his report during a recent Department of Finance (DOF) Executive Committee meeting.
The IC said 20 percent, or P3.89 billion, of COVID-related claims were paid from the beginning of the pandemic in March 2020 up to end-2020.
About 65 percent or P12.82 billion were paid in 2021, while15 percent or P2.93 billion in the first quarter of 2022.
COVID-19 related Insurance claims reached P19.64 billion between 2020 and the first quarter of 2022, with payments made by the life insurance industry accounting for more than half or around P10.84 billion of the payouts.
Funa said the rest of the pandemic-related insurance claims during the period were from HMOs with a 37 percent share at P7.39 billion, MBAs with a five percent share at P882 million and non-life policies with three percent or P527 million.
Of the total pay-out of all COVID-19-related insurance benefits, the amount P9.72 billion in claims corresponds to about 33,624 death benefits.
While COVID-19-related claims in 2020 and 2021 appear to be a staggering amount, Funa said there accounted for only 10 percent of the total benefit payments.
COVID-related claims made up only three percent of payouts in 2020 and seven percent in 2021.
