TUESDAY, 22 NOVEMBER 2011 19:49
THE microinsurance space is finally an expanding universe in the
Philippines, with the industry now offering 50 microinsurance products
to date, the government said on Tuesday.
Microinsurance, also called sachet insurance by industry practitioners
because even the poor may now have risk cover that only the more
financially well off could afford before, may be a relatively young
industry but it already extends benefits to two million Filipinos who
are members of so-called mutual benefit associations or MBAs around the
country.
According to the Department of Finance, the various MBAs offer mostly
miroinsurance products to their members, a development that has
effectively raised the country's so-called insurance penetration rate,
considered one of the lowest in the region.
Finance Undersecretary Gil Beltran, who reports on the subject today at
the start of the ASEAN Insurance Congress in Singapore, said some two
million MBA members already enjoy risk cover via the 19 insurance
companies and 17 MBAs that offer the service at present.
According to Beltran, 14 of the 19 MBAs are wholly engaged in
microinsurance and that the government has approved 50 microinsurance
products to date.
Of the total number, 33 were life microinsurance cover and 17 were
non-life microinsurance cover.
Beltran said the numbers result from the government's continuing effort
to capture even the so-called unserved and underserved Filipinos in the
microinsurance space and forms part of the larger goal to promote
financial inclusion in the country.
He said if the much earlier microcredit program pushed by government
addressed the financial needs of the unserved and underserved Filipinos,
the microinsurance program should provide cover for future unforeseen
and unexpected contingent events that threaten life, limb or even property.
Beltran also said the country's microinsurance program is at that stage
of development where the Economist Intelligence Unit, in a study on
microfinance in the Philippines in 2010, ranked the country number one
of 54 countries in terms of putting up the regulatory framework needed
to make the industry viable or attractive.
The same study ranked the Philippines number two in overall microfinance
business environment, number four in institutional development, and
number 18 in investment climate.
Private practitioners earlier estimated the domestic microinsurance
space to be worth at least P2 billion.
The non-life component of that market was estimated to be worth at least
P200 million.
--
---------------------------------------------
CARLOS ANI - SEEDFINANCE Corporation - http://www.seedfinance.net
Email: carlosani@seedfinance.net
Landline Phones: +63495010127 and +63495762924
Cellphone: +639152919580
DEVJOBS - http://www.devjobsmail.com
PHILDEVFINANCE - http://phildevfinance.posterous.com
CONSULTING - http://www.carlosani.com
My News Clippings - http://www.myclipps.posterous.com
Family website: http://www.anifamily.net
------------------------------------------
