MEDICARD Philippines, Inc. is bullish on growth amid rising demand for healthcare coverage, which it desires to serve through the continued product diversification and digitalization.
“How many individuals within the Philippines have healthcare coverage today? How many individuals within the Philippines need healthcare coverage? Should you take a cycle looking three to 5 years, I’ve got to imagine that growth within the Philippines market in healthcare goes to proceed, but in addition within the insurance segment more broadly,” MediCard Chief Executive Officer Julian Mengual told reporters on the sidelines of an event on Wednesday.
Citing its parent’s AIA Philippines Life and General Insurance Co., Inc.’s 2025 Rethink Health Study, Mr. Mengual said the corporate desires to leverage strong demand for healthcare solutions as out-of-pocket expenses for healthcare continues to rise amongst Filipinos.
“Should you are spending greater than 40% on healthcare, there’s a necessity for solutions. And we all know a whole lot of diseases could possibly be managed in the event that they were prevented and caught early. We will do these items. That’s why I’m bullish,” he said.
“Now what the trick goes to be helps people who find themselves non-purchasers of healthcare develop into purchasers. And the challenge that we’d like to deal with is ensuring healthcare is inexpensive, ensuring the solutions we offer are relevant, and they carry all of the parts that we will bring together to assist customers meet their needs.”
MediCard is planning to launch embedded insurance products this 12 months, possibly through multiple partnerships, Mr. Mengual said.
“We’ve identified what we expect are areas where there’s an unmet need, and we’ve identified partners we imagine can be well-suited in that space to support us, and now we’re beginning to put together propositions and have interaction,” he said.
“So, the timelines will very much then depend upon partners and their willingness to take these solutions and their appetite and their timing, but we already see two or three spaces where we see significant opportunity.”
He added that they are going to expand their products for each corporations and retail customers.
“I see that we are going to proceed to construct out relevant propositions for people that could possibly be purchased directly or could possibly be purchased with partners and could possibly be embedded in partner solutions. That’s one part, but I see this as the primary steps in constructing out future propositions together for corporates that transcend this as well.”
MediCard can even proceed its investments in insurtech to enhance its services and distribution, particularly those utilizing emerging technologies like agentic artificial intelligence (AI).
“I feel insurtech broadly helps us do things in another way. We’ve invested significantly in AI over this era. I feel of AI as the following extension, especially agentic AI, but in addition, I feel the digitalization and making things frictionless and the graceful experience are all areas where insurtech will play a task,” Mr. Mengual said.
MediCard also expects continued demand for its recently launched healthcare plan that’s targeted towards gig economy staff and other individuals without regular company advantages. Demand for MediCard H.E.R.O. (Health Emergency Response On-Demand) will likely be driven by its agency channel following “significant” growth since its launch last month, Mr. Mengual said.
“Actually, where we expect it’ll begin to expand quite significantly now could be that we’re seeing in our agency channel that this can be a product that they would love to prioritize to make available to members, and the rationale being the pricing could be very inexpensive… It also gives excellent care,” he said.
“So we expect to see this grow over the remainder of the 12 months in our alternative channels that we’ve. Originally, it began as something we soft launched on our direct channels, particularly Facebook, and now it’s something that’s being offered through our AI agents, et cetera. So we expect to see improved trends on this.”
MediCard’s net income declined by 75.39% 12 months on 12 months to P39.28 million in the primary quarter from P159.66 million, data from the Insurance Commission showed. — Aaron Michael C. Sy