Insurance Commission sees more Filipinos buying microinsurance

Manila Times
Saturday, January 28, 2012 00:00
by : KATRINA MENNEN A. VALDEZ

The country’s microinsurance industry is seen to grow by more than half this year because of the increasing awareness among low-income Filipinos after a series of calamities last year.

Insurance Commission (IC) Commissioner Emmanuel Dooc said that as of December last year, there were about 3.1 million microinsurance policies sold.

Such number are comprised of families, associations, individuals and group policies to cover them and their respective members from contingent events such as death, sickness, accident and environmental calamities.

“With the sheer number of low income populace in the country, the market is definitely huge and that translates to potential profits,” Dooc said.

At present, the Philippines lags behind its regional peers in terms of insurance penetration, which hovers at below 14 percent of the total population.

The country has about eight microinsurance providers from the non-life industry, seven from life and 15 from the mutual benefit association sector.

Under a micro insurance policy, an individual could cover a contingent event such as death for only P1 a day or up to P20 a day, with claims ranging from P500 up to P200,000.

Department of Finance Director Joselito Almario said that the industry starting this year is expecting to sell 5 million more policies or 60 percent more than it has sold from the previous year.

”There is indeed an increasing awareness among low-income Filipinos regarding the need for them to avail of insurance policy. We are seeing that we could make more people buy insurance products and generate an additional 5 million policies this year,” he said.

”The series of calamities made a lot of impact with regard to ordinary people’s awareness of the necessity to have themselves and their properties covered by insurance. Sales of microinsurance policies shot up since last year,” Almario added.

He said that it is only this year that microinsurance companies were required to report every month to the IC the necessary figures that would enable the government to monitor the penetration rate and equivalent value of micro-insurance products they sold.

Almario added said that to further attract low-income earners to avail of insurance, the government in partnership with the private sector will simplify the terms and conditions on the policies, and would hasten the process of approval of claims to not more than 10 days