Insurance campaign launched

By CLARISSA MOI
ABOUT two per cent of the country’s population are insured, according to the Centre for Excellence in Financial Inclusion (Cefi).
Cefi inclusive insurance working group deputy chairman Raka Taviri said this yesterday during the launching of the insurance awareness campaign that was aimed at getting people to be familiar with the insurance products that were available in the country.
He said there was a lot of work to do in that space and the launching of the awareness campaign was important.
“We have a lot of work to do,” Taviri said.
“It is our vision to reach out to more people and insure more of our people.”
Cefi executive director Saliya Ranasinghe, while outlining the plans to reach out to more people and getting them insured, said the launching of the campaign was the start of raising awareness.
“We are going to make insurance a part of the financial education curriculum in the schools so that will be the long term strategy to make people aware,” he said.
“We are thinking of the SME drive, whether there will be a possibility to link insurance into the loan so when a loan is taken it automatically insures the business as well so that it can be packaged in that way.
“We are also talking to the insurance industry to look at new attractive products.
“We are still very traditional in there so we can look at attractive products.
“The final point is to see if we can use digital platforms to reach rural areas.
“Most of the insurance companies are much more urban-based.
“Since the government has invested so much on the digital platform and also Bank of PNG is driving the digital finance group, we feel that this is the way forward for us to reach a larger percentage of Papua New Guinea.”
Ranasinghe said feedback had been good and they were expecting new entrants into the market.
Meanwhile, Bank of BPNG deputy governor Ellison Pidik said insurance meant paying a little premium and getting covered.
“Insurance presents itself as a better form of risk management system than the wantok system,” he said.
“Therefore we are reaching out to you to really consider this as a very important way to manage our family and the risks that come.”