Monday, 08 November 2010 00:00
Written by Gold Star Daily
SOME of the world's most prominent and ardent advocates of microinsurance are set to convene today as part of a global effort to extend risk cover for the poor and help popularize the practice of financial inclusion in the Philippines where the less financially endowed are often shut out of financial services available to everyone else.
Germany's Munich Re Foundation announced the three-day Manila conference earlier in Munich, Germany and in Luxemburg to boost awareness of the event in a country where fewer than one in seven Filipinos even know what an insurance policy is and what it can do to one's life.
The 6th International Microinsurance Conference will convene at the Hotel Intercontinental in Makati City where some 500 participants from all corners of the world will discuss issues and offer solutions to the challenges facing microinsurance at present. Finance Secretary Cesar V. Purisima was expected to attend the opening of the conference.
Purisima acknowledged the key role microinsurance will play in the lives of Filipinos in the coming years and that with the full implementation of the government's public-private partnership program or PPP. "Microinsurance will be at the forefront of the Philippine government's efforts to provide our low-income sector and the poor protection from risks, providing them the means to rebuild their lives when unfortunate and unforeseen events occur," he said.
The government previously bared plans to improve the country's low insurance penetration rate where only an estimated 13.92 percent of some 90 million Filipinos have insurance cover. Local insurers under the Philippine Insurers and Reinsurers, for example, vowed to help raise awareness about the benefits of insurance cover among Filipinos. pna
A version of this article appeared in print on Nov 9, 2010 Tuesday
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