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Daniel Villanueva: Founder and President, Danvil Holdings
After Berkley International became Danvil Plans in March 2007, I started researching on the Internet who this Mr. Daniel Villanueva is. Who is this man who single-handedly took on the acquisition of Berkley for 1.25 billion pesos? Does this man have the ability to lead Danvil so that by 2010, I could get my money and so that other pre-need planholders could also get theirs in the years to come?
Until now, there are only a few notes on the Internet about Mr. Villanueva that I’ve read.
One is an article by Elizabeth Sanchez-Lacson on Inquirer.net on April 11, 2007. This article said that Mr. Daniel Villanueva held top positions in the life insurance industry for many years, including:
president of John Hancock Life Insurance Corp.
project consultant Arthur Andersen Business Consulting
president of PT-NIAGA-CIGNA Life Insurance in Indonesia
senior vice president for operation of Lincoln Philippine Life Insurance Co.
executive vice president and chief finance officer of Berkley International Plans
Sanchez-Lacson said that Mr. Villanueva helped run Berkley and its marketing unit Family First for 7 years, administering 60,000 active plans, trust fund assets of 3.8 billion pesos and planholder liabilities of 3.2 billion pesos. She also noted that much of the growth of Danvil is credited to Mr. Villanueva.
She also said that Danvil Holdings was incorporated in November 1996 as a real estate corporation, and later also as a financial service corporation.
The second article is on the web site of prudentialife. It says that Mr. Villanueva received an award from Nenita Agustin, senior vice president of Philippine Prudential Life Insurance Co., for being one of the top producers in 2007.
Now this one leaves a question in my mind. Why would Mr. Villanueva receive an award from Prudential as a producer? Was Mr. Villanueva a general agent of Prudential? Did Danvil incorporate a Prudential life plan into Danvil’s products in 2007? I bought my Danvil plan in 2000 and I didn’t buy any other Danvil plan after, so I didn’t know that Danvil sold Prudential Life plans.
Perhaps this explains a complaint by someone named Huggs on pc-tipid.com. He says that his friend bought a Prudential Life plan from Danvil, but they could not trace the OR of his first payment when they called up Prudential Life.
From my research on Danvil and Mr. Daniel Villanueva on the Internet, all the bad things associated to Danvil arise from its aggressive marketing and sales tactics in the malls. Many of those commenting are calling Danvil a scam because of these tactics, especially customers forced or pressured by sales agents into swiping their credit cards. They also interpret the changing of the name from Family First to Danvil as one scam tactic.
With regards to any bad thing said about Mr. Villanueva, I found none.
This is in contrast to the case of Legacy’s Celso de los Angeles Jr. when I researched about him after planholders were informed that Danvil’s pre-need plans were being bought by Legacy. Try researching Mr. De Los Angeles and you’d be surprised at various kinds of unsavory things said about him both in his personal life and professional life, even before Legacy collapsed. It was really providential that the 2008 Legacy deal did not push through. I applaud Danvil for this. In my very first email to Danvil after the Legacy deal announcement, I mentioned those things said about Mr. De Los Angeles.
About claims, I haven’t read about or heard of any Danvil planholder whose plan have matured in 2008 complaining on the Internet that Danvil failed to pay his/her claims. What about you? Have you heard or read about someone not receiving his/her 2008 maturity proceeds from Danvil?
Transfer of Berkley/Family First to Danvil Then to Legacy.
Most of the comments I’ve read on the Internet about Family First and Danvil condemn the high-pressure and sometimes traumatic marketing methodology of Family First/Danvil. And I understand. Because I was once pressured. And like them, I also spent nights thinking how I could be so gullible and so weak.
But later on, I had to decide: whether to lose what was first swiped off from my credit card or to continue paying to prepare for the future, as the agents said. The key factor then for me was the American firm Berkley, which launched the pre-need plans and which partnered with Family First to market its plans. I continued paying and fully paid my plan in 2005, eased by the thought that Berkley is an established American company and I’d get the results of my hard work in 2010, the year my daughter would be in second year college.
But then, the announced transfer of the plan portfolio from Danvil to Legacy put doubts in my mind. Read more
