By Michael F. Rellosa
THERE are three classes of insurance business under a tariff regime for several decades, namely fire, motor and surety. As previously mentioned, the insurance industry is deep into analyzing what is best for customers and itself – whether to retain but update the current tariff or to discard the tariff controls and go free market altogether.
After a prolonged period of introspection, followed by a period of debate, the industry in an internal referendum voted for what, in its mind, was best. The initial results were inconclusive and necessitated a second and even third round of voting. For those interested in the actual detailed results, they will be made available in the industry association's web and social media pages. Suffice it to say that the industry favored keeping to an updated tariff for the surety line. For motor, excluding the compulsory third party liability bit, the industry was ambivalent with a slim majority of those who were in attendance who voted opting to come up with its own rating while the remainder leaned towards a free market. For fire, at the third ballot, out of the 47 companies voting, 24 chose to file and use their own rate while 23 opted to go to the free market - a very slim margin for the rate filers.
Source: manilatimes.net