SUN Life Grepa Financial Inc. is aiming for a double-digit growth this year driven by its new array of products and wider distribution network.

Naresh Krishnan, president and chief executive of Sun Life Grepa Financial, said that the low take out of life insurance policy in the country only shows that the market is still very young.

At present, the penetration for life insurance in the Philippines is only 2 percent.

“Given the strength of Sun Life and Grepalife, I am confident we would post a robust growth in 2012 and outpace the industry growth. Clearly, we are looking at a double-digit growth,” Krishnan said.

Sun Life Grepa Financial was merged in October with the buy-in of Sun Life Financial into Grepalife, the insurance arm of the Yuchengco Group. Sun Life Grepa Financial is a joint venture firm of Yuchengco Group of Companies and Sun Life Financial Philippines after Sun Life acquired a 49-percent stake in Grepalife. RCBC retains 5 percent of the life insurance company.

”There is a lot of untapped potential avail and we need to capitalize that,” Krishnan said.

The top executive said the company enjoys the advantage since both insurance firms have multiple business and distribution models.

“We have inherited a wonderful company with multiple business and distribution models. Our job is how to create a valid proposition and how to deleverage on distribution capacity and how we scale it up,” Krishnan said.

“The bancassurance platform gives us access to RCBC’s 300 branches and 2 million customers so there is a huge opportunity available for us. YGC Group has more than 90 entities and thousands of agents and we [Sun Life] have 1,500 agents,” he added.

He said industry growth barely improved since 2007 with growth not even exceeding 10 percent per year. ”The key is growing the distribution, how are we able to educate them, creating the awareness level is the way to grow the business in the life insurance industry,” Krishnan said.

”We are expanding our reach not only from geographical but also from a distribution perspective to enter new segments of the market,” he added. Sun Life Grepa Financial Inc. is launching at least one new product for each quarter this year to ensure it has the products that the market needed to corner bigger share of the market.

He said variable investment linked products would also be folded into the company’s product line. Sun Life has been strong in investment linked products while Grepalife used to sell only traditional products.

“With the number of natural calamities we are seeing, clearly people know they need to have protection and having a life insurance product is a hedge against these disasters,” Krishnan said.

The low interest regime, the insurer’s top executive said would likewise encourage the market to shift from bank savings to other investments like savings products that are being offered by insurance companies.