By KATHRYN KRISTINA T. JOSE
With an elegant, high-ceilinged home featuring floor-to-ceiling glass walls overlooking rows of trees, a home office and ample outdoor space for a playground and a basketball ring on an upward sloping lot inside a gated village in Quezon City, lawyer Jose Antonio Rafael G. Santos and corporate executive wife Jessica Joyce have started realizing a plan to provide a comfortable life for their three boys: Javi, 7; Sami, 4; and Codi, 2.
Through hard work and foresight, the couple, both 37, who have been married for nine years now, also aims to secure their kids’ future with intangible assets early on.
Jose, or Bam to his family and friends, and Jessica Joyce, or Jowee, availed themselves of insurance that will pay for college education and medical services for each child. Their practical approach to life is one of their reasons for investing in their children’s future this early.
Insurance premiums are primarily calculated on clients’ health conditions. The older one gets, the higher the premium to cover medical bills for possibly more and complicated diseases.
“Since our kids are super young, the premium is still super cheap,” Bam says. Compared to when you get it much later based on presentations of insurance companies. You can really see the exponential growth of the fund. It’s a wise investment as long as we have the extra money to spare for them,” he adds.
Bam and Jowee are looking forward to discovering the best that each of their children can achieve, meeting and making memories with their future grandchildren and passing on wise financial management to the next generation. “The goal is when they start working and have their own families, they already have the capital from insurance. They have a working war chest already and won’t be starting at zero,” Bam says.
While the husband and wife have carved enviable, high-paying careers in legal and finance industries, respectively, Bam emphasizes freedom of individuality and respect for the professions their children will wish to pursue. This partly comes from an awareness that a college education from a distinguished school can expose them to various activities, encourage them to enrich their innate talents and ultimately make them truly happy.
“At the end of the day, I don’t want them to be stressed or to pick a career based solely on financial considerations. I want them to do what they want and be good at what they really want to do,” Bam says. “If they want to study abroad, why not? We just want them to finish school and cover their major health problems,” Jowee also shares.
Bam finished Business Administration from the University of the Philippines – Diliman before studying Law at the same institution. He currently works as a consultant of Cocolife, Filipino-owned and one of the country’s biggest life insurance firms. He fills his days with other roles:Partner at Yebra Devesa Loon Santos and Hernandez Law; corporate secretary and vice president for human resources at E. Zobel Inc, and Affiliate Companies; and president of All Nation Security & Investigation Services, Inc.
Meanwhile, Jowee also works with Cocolife as senior vice president and head of loans. Besides insurance products, Cocolife also offers house loans, business loans and salary loans for teachers. Equipped with the same undergraduate degree also from UP Diliman, she first worked as relationship manager, then as a risk analyst at leading banks in the Philippines.
Uncertain yet of what their kids would choose as their professions, the couple delight in seeing their personalities and interests grow. “Javi likes trying whatever his dad does like basketball, golf, etc. And Sami is very mischievous. He is the most talkative and full of crazy ideas at home, but quite shy when it comes to strangers” Jowee says. And Codi “likes to copy whatever his kuyas [elder brothers] are doing, for now.”
When not at home, Javi attends Ateneo De Manila University in Quezon City. The parents also prepared Sami to study kindergarten there after finishing nursery at nearby Miriam College. Meanwhile, Codi goes to a play school, meeting new friends and developing his faculties.
Financial discipline
Having insurance for oneself does not stem from reflex. But once kids came to their world, Bam and Jowee deemed the search for insurance products automatic and non-optional.
“We were a bit scared, especially since Javi wasn’t even one year old yet when the pandemic happened. The uncertainty of that time made everything scarier,” says Jowee. “In the back of our heads, we had thought about it [insurance for the kids] but it was not yet tangible. So, when the kids came, it was more real.”
Jowee’s mom had introduced life insurance to her and Bam immediately after they completed their undergraduate courses and before they married. But it was only after Bam’s law studies that the couple simultaneously availed of personal insurance initially, where they were each other’s beneficiary. “But even if I die, he can survive, he can work,” Jowee says, recalling the time they decided to acquire insurance for their kids early on.
With a diligent financial advisor recommended by Jowee’s mom, the couple developed a stronger grasp of how insurance can augment funds for the future generation and force financial discipline. Varieties of insurance linked with investment funds tied to stocks, bonds, or mix for wealth-building have increased, but so do cold calls offering financial tools for skyrocketing gains.
“When we got our personal insurance, I was a bit skeptical. I found it a bit of a burden because it was my first time working and I was setting aside one-fourth of my salary already to pay on a monthly basis,” Bam says. “But the more we talk to an agent, the more we know about insurance. Legitimate financial advisors will give you computations for the worst-case scenarios, the best scenarios and the middle scenarios.”
It also helps that Jowee and Bam are keeping financial balance on investment channels linked with their insurance, ensuring possible losses will be minimal.
Regular bank savings and insurance or “forced savings” can also be complementary. The regular premiums keep one’s expenses sound under a term life insurance with minimum maturity of 10 years. “In my mind, I just need to get through that. After I stop paying, it will grow on its own and look at the schedule of the agent. You just have that mentality to reach that goal, that I just have to earn this much when I’m 72, for example” Bam explains.
Dynamic goals
Despite their stable careers, the couple continues to track their finances actively for their growing kids in an uncertain world racked by regional wars, global spread of new illnesses and the threat of work displacement due to technological advancements.
“No one is immortal, and we can never tell when something bad can happen,” Jowee cautions.
Instead of becoming paralyzed by doubts and fears, she and Bam choose to look at the positive possibilities—health resilience, financial discipline and good education. “Insurance is linked to death, sickness, or aging compared to other products, like stocks where you can see the values rise in the charts. Insurance is not exciting, but it’s there when you need it most,” Bam says.
Cocolife launched Alagang Cocolife products catering to the evolving needs of Filipino families. Clients can customize their coverage by selecting riders and payment terms that best fit their budget and financial goals. Through myCocolife App, clients can talk to an advisor, discover products and monitor transactions.
In their quest for insurance, the couple learned that a good financial advisor is a good lifetime partner. Bam shares that their advisor has opened talks for an upgrade. “The money that you will get based on the first policy you got won’t be enough to cover for all your children because I think we’ll get just around P1 or 2 million. You have to top up,” he recalls.
Life is mostly what we make it. “Before the pandemic, we were a bit nervous as new parents, but really our mindset was to try our hardest and work for the family,” Jowee says. “When we got our first insurance, nothing special, [or tragic event happened to our family], we were just willing and open to try.”
Through smart financial decisions and trusted insurance solutions from Cocolife, Filipinos can build a stronger foundation and a secure future for their families. Explore Cocolife’s comprehensive suite of products and services at https://www.cocolife.com/
Photography by DIX PEREZ / Hair and makeup by LARS CABANACAN
