Since 1906, PhilFirst has stood as a quiet guardian of Filipino families and businesses, writing policies through generations of change. Now, in partnership with UAE-based AI firm ProTech, it steps into a new chapter — one where insurance is no longer sought out, but encountered naturally within the rhythms of daily life. The collaboration reflects a broader human reckoning with how trust and protection must travel to meet people where they already are, rather than waiting for them to arrive.
PhilFirst, ProTech partner to democratize insurance with AI-powered digital platform
Protection must evolve with how people live
Mark
Why does a 120-year-old insurance company need an AI platform to do what it's already been doing?
Mimi
Because the way people buy things has changed entirely. PhilFirst's expertise in underwriting—knowing who to insure and at what price—that doesn't become obsolete. But the delivery mechanism has. People don't visit insurance offices anymore. They're on their phones, in stores, taking out loans. PhilFirst needed to meet them there.
Mark
So ProTech is essentially the storefront, and PhilFirst is the actual insurance?
Mimi
Exactly. ProTech handles the digital experience, the enrollment, the claims processing through an app or website. PhilFirst underwrites the risk and pays the claims. It's a clean division: technology company does what it does best, insurance company does what it does best.
Mark
Does this actually make insurance cheaper for people?
Mimi
The source doesn't say it will be cheaper. It says it will be more accessible and convenient. Those are different things. Cheaper would mean lower premiums. Accessible means you can buy it without friction. Convenient means you can manage it from your phone. Whether the price changes depends on how much efficiency ProTech's platform actually creates.
Mark
Who benefits most from this—the customer or the company?
Mimi
Both, theoretically. The customer gets insurance embedded into moments when they're already making financial decisions. The company gets to sell more policies because the barrier to entry drops. But the real test is whether people actually use it, and whether claims get paid as smoothly as the enrollment process.
Mark
What's the risk here?
Mimi
That the technology works beautifully but the insurance part fails—claims take forever, disputes arise, people feel abandoned when they actually need the money. Or that embedding insurance everywhere just means people buy coverage they don't understand and don't need.
El Pulso
- A century-old insurer and a cutting-edge AI platform are merging their strengths to disrupt how millions of Filipinos encounter and experience insurance.
- The friction of traditional insurance — the offices, the paperwork, the separate trips — has long kept coverage out of reach for those who need it most.
- The new model embeds insurance directly into retail checkouts, loan transactions, and digital wallets, making protection available at the exact moment it becomes relevant.
- A single digital interface now handles enrollment, policy changes, customer service, and claims — collapsing what once required multiple steps into one seamless flow.
- The partnership positions PhilFirst to expand its reach across one of Southeast Asia's largest markets, while ProTech gains a trusted local anchor with over a century of underwriting credibility.
Since 1906, PhilFirst has stood as a quiet guardian of Filipino families and businesses, writing policies through generations of change. Now, in partnership with UAE-based AI firm ProTech, it steps into a new chapter — one where insurance is no longer sought out, but encountered naturally within the rhythms of daily life. The collaboration reflects a broader human reckoning with how trust and protection must travel to meet people where they already are, rather than waiting for them to arrive.
PhilFirst, an insurer writing policies in the Philippines since 1906, has partnered with ProTech, an AI-driven InsurTech firm based in the United Arab Emirates. Together, they aim to transform insurance from a product people must seek out into a service woven into the transactions of everyday life — shopping, borrowing, or navigating a digital app.
The practical implications are striking. A customer at a retail counter could apply for and activate coverage before leaving the store. A borrower could add insurance protection within the same transaction as their loan, with no separate paperwork or additional visits. Enrollment, policy management, customer service, and claims all flow through a single digital interface.
PhilFirst's Chief Operations Officer, Analiza Evasco, described the move as a natural evolution. The company's founding commitment — trust and protection for Filipino families and businesses — remains intact, she said, but the way people live has changed. They expect services to be fast, digital, and present at the moments they're actually needed. ProTech supplies the underlying technology: the pricing algorithms, claims infrastructure, and backend systems. PhilFirst provides the insurance product itself and the financial backing that makes coverage real.
The deeper significance lies in a shift the industry has long resisted. Insurance has traditionally been a standalone purchase — something you decide to seek, find, compare, and buy. The embedded model meets people inside existing relationships and transactions, reaching those who might otherwise skip coverage not out of indifference, but because the effort of obtaining it felt like too much. For Filipino consumers, insurance could quietly become a background service — present when needed, accessible without ceremony.
PhilFirst, an insurance company that has been writing policies in the Philippines since 1906, has joined forces with ProTech, an artificial intelligence platform based in the United Arab Emirates. The partnership aims to remake how Filipinos buy and manage insurance—moving it from something you visit an office to purchase into something you can access and complete while shopping, borrowing money, or using a digital app.
The collaboration pairs PhilFirst's more than a century of underwriting knowledge with ProTech's AI-driven technology. What this means in practical terms: a customer could walk into a retail store, apply for insurance, and have coverage activated before leaving the checkout counter. Or a person taking out a loan could add insurance protection as part of that same transaction, without separate paperwork or visits to another location. The system handles enrollment, policy changes, customer service inquiries, and claims all through the same digital interface.
PhilFirst's Chief Operations Officer, Analiza Evasco, framed the move as a natural evolution. The company's founding principle—trust and protection for Filipino families and businesses—remains unchanged, she said. But the way people live has shifted. They expect services to be fast, digital, and woven into the moments when they actually need them. "Our delivery of protection must evolve with them," Evasco explained. By combining PhilFirst's deep expertise in assessing risk and paying claims with ProTech's technology, the company believes it can offer insurance that feels less like a bureaucratic obligation and more like a practical tool.
ProTech operates across South Asia and other emerging markets, providing the underlying platform that retailers, lenders, and digital businesses use to sell and service insurance products online. The company's technology handles the backend complexity—the algorithms that price policies, the systems that process claims, the infrastructure that keeps everything running—while PhilFirst provides the actual insurance product and the financial backing that makes the coverage real.
The shift this partnership represents is significant within the insurance industry itself. For decades, insurance has been sold as a standalone product: you decide you need it, you seek it out, you buy it. The new model embeds insurance into existing customer relationships and transactions. A person buying groceries, getting a loan, or using a digital wallet could encounter insurance as an option at that exact moment, rather than having to remember to shop for it separately. This approach is designed to reach people who might otherwise skip insurance entirely—not out of indifference, but because the friction of finding, comparing, and purchasing it felt like too much effort.
For PhilFirst, the partnership represents a bet that technology can expand its reach without diluting its core function: assessing risk accurately and paying claims fairly when people need the money. For ProTech, it represents a foothold in one of Southeast Asia's largest insurance markets. For Filipino consumers, it means insurance could become less of a chore and more of a background service, there when needed, accessible without ceremony.
Citas Notables
As the lifestyle of our consumers evolves, our delivery of protection must evolve with them. Partnering with ProTech allows us to infuse our time-tested underwriting expertise with world-class AI technology.— Analiza Evasco, PhilFirst Chief Operations Officer
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