Since it was launched in 2019 as a partnership between InLife and the International Finance Corporation (IFC), a member of the World Bank Group, InLife Sheroes has already reached out to more than 10.8 million Filipinos. This was amidst the continuing challenges of the COVID-19 global pandemic. Thanks to various on-ground and online activities and partnerships with like-minded organizations, Sheroes has served as a vehicle for women to gain access to financial education, health and wellness, womenspecific solutions, and social and business networks. This partnership gained more ground in 2022 with the addition of organizations that promote women’s economic empowerment and equal access to basic services.

Providing Access to Clean Water

Among these partnerships is with Waves for Water (W4W), a nonprofit organization that provides clean water to communities inaccessible by public water systems.

With InLife’s financial assistance, W4W was able to distribute over 30 water filtration systems to help 96 households in Barangay Marungko, Angat, Bulacan.

The filtration systems created a sustainable potable water source for local residents, many of whom were vulnerable to diarrhea, gastroenteritis, and other waterborne illnesses because of clean water scarcity. The turnover of the filtration systems was the culminating activity of the “Nation of Sheroes” program that was launched during InLife Sheroes’ third anniversary celebration in March 2022.

W4W was also able to extend its outreach to various disasterstricken areas using the P450,000 donations raised by the Insular Foundation from the “Race for the Extra Mile” InLife community event in September 2022. From October to December 2022, a total of 114 water filters were deployed to those affected by Typhoon Neneng in Ilocos Norte and Typhoon Paeng in Aklan and Maguindanao, as well as by the shearline-induced floods and landslides in Brooke’s Point, Palawan.

Empowering Women-Led Businesses

InLife Sheroes also marked a milestone in 2022 with the launch of the InLife Negosyo Challenge, in partnership with Insular Foundation and Villgro Philippines, a gender-smart incubator that funds, mentors, and supports impact enterprises.

The InLife Negosyo Challenge was designed to find startup social enterprises whose purpose is to give women and marginalized sectors livelihood and income opportunities.

Four women-led businesses won a total of PhP 2 million in cash grants from the Challenge. The grand winner, which received a cash grant of PhP 1 million, was Panublix Innovations, Inc., a social enterprise that pursues sustainable fashion by connecting designers to regenerative fabrics and artisan crafts.

Empath Corporation, a women-led business that provides online mental health services, was first runner-up and was awarded a P500,000 grant.

HeySuccess Virtual Assistance Services and MAGWAI tied for second runner-up and won a cash grant of PhP 250,000 each. HeySuccess is an enterprise that supports would-be digital professionals and virtual assistants from indigenous peoples communities in Benguet and Baguio City. MAGWAI is a sustainable, marine-friendly personal care product brand.

Creating a Safe Space for Women in STEM

To advance women’s economic development, Insular Foundation sustained its partnership with For the Women (FTW) Foundation to provide a training program that could lead to career opportunities in data science and analytics, a field that suffers from a significant gender gap.

Eighteen scholars comprised the first batch of graduates in 2021, two of whom were hired by Insular Health Care.

On its second year, in 2022, the foundations selected 31 women scholars who started their 14-week intensive training in November. The scholars underwent a thorough vetting process starting September and were among 493 applicants nationwide. The women came from diverse backgrounds: new college graduates, government employees, public school teachers, and InLife employees.

“31 as a number is not statistically significant. But 31 young women, who are better equipped and driven to improve themselves to make conscious choices and better decisions for themselves, their families, their workplaces, their communities — that would create real and meaningful changes,” said Insular Foundation Executive Director Ana Maria Soriano at the graduation ceremonies of the scholars.

But what does this recognition mean to InLife policyholders and stakeholders?

In this interview, Atty. Renato S. de Jesus, InLife Executive Vice President who is also the Chief Legal and Governance Officer and Corporate Secretary, sheds light on why these principles matter to InLife customers.

How and on what criteria did InLife win this award for consecutive years?

All of them are based on the principles of corporate governance: transparency, accountability, fairness, independence, and more. These principles are broken down into several sub-principles, such as taking care of your shareholders. And then there are standards for each, where you have to comply. In most of the areas, we got the highest score.

What do you think needs to be improved?

Good governance is always a continuing journey at InLife. We don’t just comply with the standards; we always aim for the best practices. If we cannot do the best practice ourselves, we look for jurisdictions that know better and try to emulate them. If they’re applicable to our organization, by all means we adopt their standards.

But these are principles or practices really; the more important thing is to really focus on who our stakeholders are and what they need. We do everything to protect and benefit them — this is the real essence of governance. It’s not lip service. It’s providing things they really need.

Let’s talk about customer centricity. How does corporate governance benefit InLife customers?

Life insurance is a business of trust. It’s inherent to InLife as an organization to ensure that the needs of our customers are provided, and the needs of our stakeholders are addressed and served. We can say we are here for them: that’s the basic principle and the mindset. We deliver value.

InLife isn’t just like other insurance corporations, which are stock corporations. In our case, we are a mutual company — we don’t have stockholders but instead have members. Our members are the policyholders themselves, and the reason they are with us is they want to be protected and get good returns from their investments. That’s what we are focusing on: what is valuable to them, and the commitment and promise to provide them with the policyholder service they need. All of this is to protect their interest as primary stakeholder.

Corporate governance is often seen as an offshoot of the heightened demand from consumers to hold companies accountable. Is that a prevalent concept here in the Philippines?

It all started because of the financial and corporate scandals in the United States. The bad players knew the reason: there was no transparency.

In our case, when InLife was starting with all these practices, the competition was always focused on sales. Eventually there was a shift to the customer perspective, highlighting the need for excellent customer service.

Apart from sales and service, there’s also corporate governance and doing the right things so people trust you. Because of the nature of the business, if people trust you, they will buy from you and sales will naturally follow. That was our concept when we were trying to sell the concept of corporate governance. It’s a combination of regulatory requirements and the organizational drive.

How is adherence to good corporate governance principles cascaded down the line in the organization?

As I said, it’s a journey. We started many years ago even before corporate governance became a regulatory requirement or a buzzword because of the very essence of our organization: we have a lot of members, our policyholders. The objective was to have good corporate governance as a culture, a second nature or a way of life. So it has to be ingrained in the minds of all the members of our organization — from the Board of Trustees down to our employees.

Admittedly, it was a bit of a struggle at first to do this. In anything you do, you have to advocate. At the start, there was some form of resistance, as people were used to the traditional way of just doing the work they are expected to do. Focusing on the customer or policyholder has to be imbibed by everyone, and when that’s done, they would know the rationale behind these requirements or practices. We had to introduce corporate governance slowly but surely. Eventually, employees became advocates themselves and from there it has always been part of their decision-making.

Governance isn’t just a function of one unit in the company. It’s a shared responsibility by everyone. We all have a valuable role in committing and adhering to corporate governance principles.

How did your digital transformation improve your corporate governance practices?

Digitalization fast-tracked everything. As you know, corporate governance has to rely on effective communication, sharing of ideas, and listening to stakeholders. Going digital improved all of that.

In our corporate website, we publish all our company disclosures to show transparency and financial soundness. Our policyholders get real-time information on their own records via our Customer Portal. Now there are protection policies with investment built into them, so there are things to be updated every so often depending on the performance of the market. We provide that facility in our InLife app so policyholders don’t have to go to the office or call their agent to do the transaction. They can transact within the comfort of their own home or wherever they go, whenever they want to.

Digitalization also helps in effective communication, as we can easily update policyholders even regarding our corporate social responsibility (CSR) activities. It’s about building an InLife community and enhancing our partnership with members so they become active participants in the business. It’s InLife on demand, as they need it.

What challenges do you see in improving your corporate governance practices?

We have to maintain the spirit and keep the fire burning. Fortunately, we have put structures in place to ensure these principles stay alive in the organization, of course as guided by our regulators. We have a very strong, independent-minded Board of Trustees as well as governance committees tasked to oversee the continuing corporate governance practices in the company. The senior management, too, is very conscious of these principles.

There are challenges but we make sure continuing implementation won’t be a problem. We’d like to listen more — and for us, that’s the most important thing.

Governance isn’t just a function of one unit in the company. It’s a shared responsibility by everyone. We all have a valuable role in committing and adhering to corporate governance principles.