CEBU CITY, March 23 (PNA) — Some 28 million Filipinos have micro-insurance coverage in 2014, according to the Insurance Commission (IC).
The agency sees a continued growth in this segment as more Filipinos turn to micro-insurance for protection and financial security, especially for calamities.
“Micro-insurance has expanded as low-income Filipinos in the countryside realized that micro-insurance products can empower them. It can provide them protection and financial security especially in time of calamities and this was tested during typhoon Yolanda,” IC Commissioner Emmanuel Dooc said.
Dooc noted that over 140,000 households in the affected provinces in the Visayas were paid from their micro-insurance coverage.
Although the amount paid was meager at the range of Php5,000 to Php10,000, Dooc said this enabled the typhoon victims to buy light housing materials to replace their damaged houses.
“It is a lot better than receiving a bag of relief goofs worth Php500. More importantly, getting insurance proceeds preserve the dignity of an individual because insurance benefits don’t come as dole outs,” he said.
Micro-insurance is an insurance product priced at between five to 7.5 percent of the minimum daily wage, while benefits amount to not more than 500 times the daily minimum wage.
Rosario Gejon, the new president of the Cebu Insurers Club (CIC) said the organization will be a staunch advocate of micro-insurance by holding activities like basic non-life insurance seminar, symposium to universities, and tapping local government and non-government organizations in conducting insurance literacy programs to the grassroots level.
Dooc said the insurance industry did well last year despite a slight slowdown in the performance of life insurance.
Non-life insurance grew by 15 percent from Php26 billion in total premium income to Php31 billion in 2014.
Life insurance, however, slightly dipped by seven percent to Php188 billion premium income from Php198 billion in 2013 due to lower sales performance.
The insurance industry is dominated by life and non-life sectors, but also includes the reinsurance, pre-need and mutual benefit associations (MBA).
Dooc said he sees the non-life sector to continue growing while he remains hopeful that the life insurance sector will recover this year from the slow sales in 2014.
“Overall, I foresee a better year for the entire industry. We expect to generate Php200 billion in total premium production for both life and non-life sectors,” said Dooc. (PNA)