Special Feature on BusinessMirror Thursday, March 9, 2006



HERALDING A LIFELONG COMMITMENT OF SECURING THE FUTURE

By Roderick L. Abad
Supplement Writer

With Life's unpredictability, ensuring the future has become everybody's business since time immemorial. Catering to this concern, the pre-need industry has thrived and continued to serve the manifold number of clients who resort to pre-need plans - life, education and pension plans, as saving mechanisms to answer future needs of either themselves or their beneficiaries.

In the Philippines, pre-need companies started to manifest a mushrooming effect at a time when the country's economy was flourishing in the '70's, next only to Japan. Since then, the industry has steadily thrived and that buying pre-need plans has become an alternative to investments for families with modest means to secure not only their future needs but also their dependents.

The booming industry, however, was regulated in 1978 by the Securities and Exchange Commissions (SEC), which until today has continued providing the regulatory framework for constant review and improvement. Joining the growing number of the industry players, Eternal Plans Inc. (EPI) was established in 1981 and has grown to provide the vital link towards anybody's carefree and financially secured future for the past 25 years.


Humble Beginnings

Complementing the memorial services offered by its sister company - Eternal Gardens Memorial Park Corp., EPI was founded by Ambassador Antonio L. Cabangon Chua in 1981, when its first pre-need plan the life plan, was approved by the government regulating body. Aware of the fact that every person or family would face numerous needs in the future, it did not take long for the company to launch pension and education plans the following years.

While earning the trust and confidence of planholder, the number of - clientele has grown tremendously as the company has expanded across the country. A living proof of its dedication in providing benefits is the more than a billion-peso-worth of services it has given to its planholders.

In line with its life plan, EPI has provided inimitable and dignified memorial services by forging nationwide tie-ups with some of the country's top-of-the-line memorial homes known for their commendable commitment, competence and reputation in rendering services at the time of bereavement. For its innovative flare, on the other hand, it has introduced a life plan with cremation to planholders.

Meanwhile, other EPI pre-need services like pension and education plans have so far effectively covered education costs of the buyer's children as well as their pension benefits upon retirement.

In its faithfully complying with the government's requirements of providing genuine assurance to the clients' financial benefits, three of the country's top banking institutions - Bank of the Philippine Islands, Rizal Commercial Banking Corp. and United Coconut Planters Bank, have been tapped as EPI's Trustee Banks. Furthermore, eligible planholders are also insured by another EPI sister company, Fortune Life Insurance Co.

All these have contributed a lot in the growth of Eternal Plans in serving the roster of individual planholders several government and private groups or institutions who have entrusted their future with the pre-need company.


Accomplishments through the years

Living up to its silver anniversary theme, Making Lives Better 25 Years and Beyond," EPI has been a bastion of excellence in its commitment to provide quality products and services to ensure the client's future.

"For the past 25 years, we, at Eternal Plans, have never remised in our responsibility of extending quality products and services to our valued planholders," said Domingo R. Almoninia, Jr., EPI's president and chief operating officer. "This commitment have enabled us to survive the tests of time, thus making us remain vibrant and stable up to this very day."

One proof of the company's continued stay in the industry is its consistency of operations through the years.

According to Almoninia Jr., EPI has been consistently granted license by the SEC to sell its pre-need plans to the public since its inception in 1981. Also, it is one of the few industry players that offer a complete line of pre-need plans - life, education and pension plans.

In its dedication to giving benefits due to planholders, EPI vice chairman and chief executive officer Elmer M. Lorica said the pre-need company has extended billions of pesos worth of services to its more than 100,000 enlisted clients.

"The amount reaching to billions of pesos that we have spent for the benefits of our clients are but a clear indication that securing their future needs is our top priority," Lorica stressed.

While insurance companies, by the very nature of the product and service they sell, rely on the trust clients place on them, it is interesting to note that EPI has sustained sufficiency of its trust funds - the heart and should of the pre-need firm where the installment payments of planholders are placed.

With the wise management of the clients' invested money, the company has protected the integrity of the trust fund, especially in times of financial setback besetting the industry. This was attested when issues concerning major pre-need companies having problems with their trust funds broke out in August last year.

Confident to the company's ability to fulfill its commitments, EPI Planholders remained unperturbed to the issue and believed that with sufficient funds, the company could meet its maturing plans at any given day in any given year. Other uncertainly of last year's financial difficulties of major pre-need companies had redounded to a dismal drop in sales of the pre-need industry as a whole.

"Last year was a cruel year for the pre-need industry. Fortunately, however, our recorded drop in sales was very much lower than that of the entire industry's 45 percent," EPI SVP-chief marketing officer Dario B. Martinez reiterated.

He attributed this to the aggressiveness of the sales associates to sell pre-need plans as well as to the company's effort to remain reliable in delivering quality service to its clients at all times. Looking forward to the next 25 years, Martinez said that, "We will continue to address the people's future. We are here to stay."

Sharing the same expectation, Lorica related that, "What we did in the last 25 years, we will double it in the next 25 years to even serve more people."

For the brighter prospects ahead of the company, EPI AVP marketing Rolando B. Bongalon encouraged "Like our existing planholders, it is for sure that they will never regret but renew theirolders to sign up with Eternal Plans. "Like our existing planholders, it is for sure that they will never regret but renew their plans to us given the quality of our products and services," Bongalon stressed.

Asian influential industry player that truly can't be ignored, EPI has become a multi awarded surety company. Among the many citations it has reaped is the Most Outstanding Pre-need Company Award vested into it by the Consumer Union of the Philippines (CUP) in 2002, which has bolstered its commitment of best benefits and services ever.

"More than the awards we have collected through the years are the monuments we have had inculcated in the lives and the hearts of our planholders, scholars and sales associates," Bongalon said.


Living testimonials

AMID stiff competition within the pre-need industry at a time when EPI started its business in 1981, it still attracted multitudes of people from all walks of life to invest for their future by way of availing themselves the pre-need plans introduced to them by the hardworking and trustworthy sales associates of the company. Contributing to EPI'S dramatic growth, the number of planholders has multiplied together with the sales people over the years. While reaping the fruit of what they have sown since getting their benefits, they have remained loyal and grateful to the company.

"Financially, my education plan from Eternal was of great help, especially during the times when my parents' income was below average due to the low sales of our business," said Geraldine C. Mamotos, EPI scholar who graduated cum laude at UP Los Baños.

Apart from covering expenses like tuition fees, allowances and other miscellaneous fees, Eternal Plans, in its generosity to deserving student-planholders, also has innovative way of encouraging them to make good to their studies.

"There are other benefits that we get from Eternal Plans like a free insurance for scholars for two years and a return of premium after 10 years, once the scholar graduated from college," remarked Xyris Millo, a graduate scholar from Central Luzon State University, Nueva Ecija.

Realizing the plan's value, on the other hand, Frank M. Banaynal, an OFW based in Saudi Arabia, was very thankful to Eternal Plans for the success of his twin daughters Dana and Maria Teresa, who both graduated cum laude from the College of Nursing of the Agoo Medical and Educational Center (Bicol Christian College of Medicine) in 2004.

"With the way Eternal Education Plan had contributed so much in the studies of my daughters, I will not hesitate to endorse and recommend Eternal Plan to other overseas Filipinos with young children left in the Philippines," he said. Meanwhile, Soledad V. Chu of Capiz was motivated to join EPI as an Area Manager after witnessing the company's quality service with the life plan she bought for her deceased father. "Because I personally experienced how Eternal Plans provided all the necessary memorial services for my father's burial, I decided to join the company," she exclaimed. "I know it is good and through selling the plan, I can be of help to others."

For Leticia A. Villanueva, who has been working at EPI for 24 years as area manager of its Bataan branch, "Selling pre-need plans is not a job, but a mission to serve our countrymen through the products that we offer." Speaking about the rewarding experience of staying at Eternal Plans for 25 years, on the other hand, Mrs. Felicidad R. Felizardo, Las Piñas area manager said, "EPI never fails to deliver the services it has promised, including the assistance it provides not just to its planholders but to its sales associates as well."

Truly, the competitive pool of sales associates, planholders and scholars of EPI, who have chosen to stay with the company are but the living proofs that everybody can find a reliable and trustworthy partner with Eternal Plans - a pre-need company with a lifelong commitment of securing their future.


Back to top