I don’t do reviews of consumer goods because I don’t buy much stuff. Whenever I do buy something, it is because I need it and you can definitely bet that it is of good value.

When a dear friend invited me to a product presentation for some bloggers, I was not too keen attending it since the product to be discussed are ear phones. What will I do in an a product review for something young people would love but something I might sneer upon. I have seen how many foolishly splurged in uber expensive ear phones. I am aghast to hear some people spend more than P10,000 for some silly earphones.

* Photo courtesy of Jane Uymatiao

Since the invite came from a friend who I can’t say no to, I grudgingly agreed out of friendship, nothing more. When I arrived at the Digital Walker in Eastwood, I was handed a bag with a set of earphones for me to test. Politely, I listened to the product presentation and I must say that the product being introduced was impressive in design and I was sure it sounded good; otherwise the distributors would not spend a dime promoting it. The presenter said something that caught my attention, he said that the product is of good value and is relatively inexpensive compared to other branded earphones. I immediately inspected the box and was pleasantly surprised to see the sticker price of the earphones.

The brand is called Urbanears. When we were asked to try it out, I was excited to plugit onto my  iPhone and hear for myself of the quality. I searched through my playlist and decided to play a jazz track from George Benson – the best way to test good sound is through good music, not some moronic song from a ‘gangsta rapper’ or Lady GaGa. I was testing Urbanears’ entry level earphones, the Bagis and I was impressed with the quality. I was further impressed that all Urbanears come with microphones already which is so nifty for iPhones (and other units).

The price? P1,200 only for the Urbanears Bagis. For the fashion conscious, they’ll like the fact that Urbanears items come in with so many colors… too many if you ask me. Since I’m a boring person, I was happy with my blue earphones (though I’d rather be green) – well, it’s still more exciting than white or black. Why buy an expensive earphone when you can get the same quality at a much cheaper price? For a personal finance guy like me, this is a product I like! Cost + value = win.

When I got home and told my teenagers that I came from the Urbanears’ event and I had a sample, they swooned and asked me for my ear phones. My reply: sorry kids, I’m keeping this one.

Urbanears are available at Digital Walker stores.

The Insurance Commission has released the ranking of the Life Insurance Industry for 2010 according to revenue or total premiums.

Philamlife keeps its lead in the pack its lead over the Canadian insurer Sun Life is a narrow one with only a 600M lead. 2011 will be an eventful year for 2010’s 2 largest life insurers. Ayala Land’s Rex Mendoza took over the leadership of Philamlife as its newest CEO. Rex Mendoza was Philamlife’s former EVP and the President of Philam Asset Management (PAMI) prior to his transfer to Ayala Land in 2005. Sunlife, on the other hand has acquired substantial ownership of Grepalife & will soon launch a Bancassurance partnership with RCBC. The heat is on between these two and 2011 would be an interesting year to watch.

2010 also saw the dislodging of Insular Life by Axa Life as the 3rd largest insurer in terms of premium income. Further, Prulife UK also gains ground and also overtakes Insular by landing in the 4th place.  Canadian insuerer Manulife improves a notch and lands on the 7th place. The Italian insurer & BDO partnership Generali Pilipinas slides to the the 10th spot from its 7th slot in 2009.

Many of the top insurers sells market driven products and it seems that the robust market of 2010 seems to have helped the industry. In contrast, Generali Pilipinas decided to discontinue selling single pay products and focus on the more profitable regular pay products.

While there has been some growth in the life insurance industry, a bigger concern is the minuscule number of Filipinos being insured as compared to our growing population. We still have a very low percentage of insured population which is a tragedy as insurance is a very important tool for risk management and long term savings.

Unfortunately, insurance products are still being pushed and peddled although I know there have been vast improvements on the competencies of intermediaries. It’s just that we need to get all insurers & intermediaries on board and consider the advocacy of education first and foremost. I encourage the insurers and those selling insurance products to try harder in educating the Philippine market on the merits of financial planning — herewith is the key that will unlock substantial & sustainable growth for the industry.

My 2 cents.

Is there a looming crisis ahead? Is the worse yet to come? There are many arguments for and against these forecasts and to be honest, there’s no way to know which direction we are heading to. Best bet is always prepare, diversify and practice common sense.

The bible always reminds us to prepare. The story of Joseph and the Pharaoh is a very good reminder for us and it might be a good idea to revisit Genesis 41. Yahoo Finance features Jim Rogers,  a popular financial commentator and international investor and he was not too bullish of things to come, to say the least.

Watch his interview.