I’m always looking for ways to make my money work harder. When I first learned about BPI Save Up more or less 10 years ago while I was still working at a BPO, I immediately opened one. I got to have automatic savings and free insurance? What’s not to like? Why not let my money do two things, instead of doing only one thing?

Unfortunately, when I changed jobs my payroll bank account also changed. I didn’t bother keeping the BPI Save Up account active. After years of dormancy it became a regular savings account.

I recently decided to open a new BPI Save Up account during a visit to the Philippines. My idea was to park my peso emergency funds in a Save Up account, and while the money is sitting there waiting to be used for an emergency, it can also give me free insurance coverage.

As a matter of personal choice, I always leave my emergency funds in a savings account instead of putting it in a money market account or other short-term investments. And as we know, the interest rate of savings accounts are very low. To people like me who hate losing money from inflation, the free insurance coverage from BPI Save Up can make up for the lost potential gain.

There are two types of BPI Save Up accounts: (1) BPI Save UP Automatic Savings + Insurance and (2) BPI Save UP High Automatic Savings. This post refers to the first type: Save Up account WITH INSURANCE.

Features of BPI Save Up + Insurance

• BPI Save Up provides FREE insurance coverage for basic life and accidental death of up to 5 times your month-to-date average daily balance (MTD-ADB) for the past three months of up to a maximum of Php 2 million.
• This free insurance does not require the depositor to take physical tests to avail. As long as you have an account and fall under the terms of the group insurance policy, you are covered.
• You can open a Save Up account for Php 1,000. You money will start earning interest once you have a minimum deposit of Php 5,000. Interest rate is 0.25% annually.
• Apart from the free insurance, the automatic savings is also very convenient and can be a way for you to make your life easier. Automating is a proven way to force people to save. You can just set up the process once and leave it.

Why You Should Open a BPI Save UP Account

It has been proven that automating savings help people achieve their goal amounts faster because they don’t have to actively do something to put or transfer money into an account. Your savings would actually grow faster if you remove yourself from the savings process. Who knew?

For BPI Save Up, you can set the automatic debit the day of or the day after your paycheck comes in. That way, your money is already set aside for future use before you have time to spend it. Several other banks also offer this service such as Land Bank. The difference is, BPI’s comes with free insurance coverage. BPI provides basic life, accidental death, and accidental dismemberment insurance with their Save Up accounts.

Up to 10x death coverage

The basic life insurance provides coverage up to 5 times of the account’s month-to-date – average daily balance (MTD-ADB). If you want to maximize this, make sure that you put in Php 400,000 in your BPI Save Up account. The insured has to be at least 15 years old but not more than 60. If you are outside of the 15-60 age range, you cannot avail the free insurance.

In the case of your death, your elected beneficiaries will be awarded the insurance. You will be asked to submit the name of your beneficiary when you open a Save Up account.

Below are more information on the insurance coverage provided:

1. Basic Life : Five times the account’s average MTD-ADB of the past three calendar months prior to the Insured’s demise up to a maximum of P2,000,000.
2. Accidental Death: Additional five times the account’s average MTD-ADB of the past three calendar months prior to the Insured’s demise, up to a maximum of P2,000,000.
3. Accidental Dismemberment coverage is based on the following table:

How to Compute the ADB

To figure out how much is your ADB, which is the basis of your insurance claim, you can the this formula:

Day 1 ending balance + Day 2 ending balance + …(so on..).. +Day 30 or day 31 ending balance

Number of days in the calendar month

Exceptions from coverage

As in all insurance schemes, Save Up has its own exceptions from coverage, The major exception is that only people between 15 to 60 can be covered.

Also, deaths that occur within one year from the date of opening your account caused by pre-existing and critical illnesses or conditions are not covered. This is true whether or not the insured was aware of the existence of the illness or condition. Another cause of death that is not covered when it happens within one year of opening the account is death by suicide.

Deaths occurring in restricted areas including but not limited to, Iraq, Iran and Lebanon are likewise not covered.

How to File a Claim

In the event that you die, your beneficiary should call BPI ExpressPhone (89-100) and request for the appropriate insurance claim forms and a checklist of the required supporting documents. You have to make sure that they have all the necessary forms and requirement on hand since the application for claim will only be accepted only if they are complete.

How to Open a BPI Save UP Account

Opening a Save Up account is simple. Just visit the BPI branch nearest you and make sure to bring all the requirements listed below:

• Must have an existing BPI savings account.
• Personal appearance in any BPI branch
• ID photo
• Government issued IDs
• SSS and TIN information

As soon as I arrived in the bank, I took a number and waited for my turn to talk to the services representative. I explained that I want to open a BPI Save UP account and I am an existing BPI client. She gave me an application form to fill out.

When filling up the application form, you have the option to choose the frequency of you automatic transfers. You also have to set the day of the month the transfers will be done, and the amount of the transfers. What I did was just set the transfer to once a month, with Php 1,000 for each transfer (minimum transfer amount and frequency).

After filling out the form and affixing my signature, the BPI rep gave me an info card with my name, details, and the name of my beneficiary. She also gave me an application form to enroll the Save Up account to my online account so that I can make transfers at my own convenience.

TIP: When opening a Save UP account, consider that you need to have a BPI Express Online account to be able to conveniently transfer your funds between accounts.

The info card will be given to you by the time you finished the transaction. The info card is just a piece of cardboard with your policy information and the name of your beneficiary. You can have it laminated to protect it from damage, like I did.

Using money wisely

Opening BPI Save Up account is part of my ongoing effort to optimize my finances and investments to get the best value for my money. Again, I suggest that any money you set aside for your emergency fund be deposited in a BPI Save Up account or a similar account in your preferred bank (if you know of other banks that offer similar products, let me know in the comments).

Instead of the money just sitting there waiting to be used, let it have another function for you. In a sense, the free insurance is also coverage for emergency. If you, as the account holder dies, your death may also be an emergency for your family, especially if you are the main breadwinner.

I’m interested to know of other financial hacks that we can take advantage of as consumers in the Philippines. If you do have one, please share with us in the comments.