Per capita income on the rise:

Insurance, a prime investment soon

By Shirajiv SIRIMANE

It is sad to note that only less than 30 percent of the population is insured and this is a negative trend in the region. The main reason for this is that the low per capita income which prevents people from investing in luxuries such as insurance.

It took five years to increase the per capita income from US $ 1,000 to

2,000. However, with rapid development taking place in the country and new employment opportunities created through them the per capita income of a Sri Lankan is increasing and it is expected to hit US $ 4,000 by 2016. This will enable Sri Lankans to invest in insurance.

Since government employees are a part of the life blood of the nation as their contribution is huge and the Mahinda Chintana in a bid to safeguard them have introduced an insurance policy through the National Insurance Trust Fund (NITF) with unmatched benefits tailor-made for them.

The scheme is so popular today that its membership has increased from 650, 000 to 1.3 million in a very short time. The Chairman of the NITF, Senaka Abeygunasekara said that a special National Insurance Trust Fund was created in 2006 under the Finance and Planning Ministry to uplift the living standards of State sector employees as a pledge made by the Mahinda Chintana.

He said that under the Agrahara scheme Public Servants are provided an insurance policy for a premium of just Rs 75 per month. This policy gives the government servant a cover for more than Rs. 350,000 and the claim ratio for this scheme is around Rs 90 million per month.

We have also introduced Motor, SRCC and terrorism insurance and the popular migrant workers and reinsurance policies.

He said that the insurance industry the NITF will build hospital wards and will expand the project for the first time.

The Agrahara hospital wards project has been launched at a cost of Rs. 1 billion. Under the project over 300 wards will be constructed at State hospitals by 2016. "The objective is to have one ward per hospital for policyholders" he said. State sector employees will have all facilities similar to private hospital in the ward. Services at this hospital will be provided free in recognition of their services.

He said that in addition to the policyholder even the spouses below 21 years of age are covered under this scheme.

Under this scheme in the event of a death Rs. 600,000 is offered and for a heart surgery Rs. 350,000. An other unique feature of the policy is that it continues even after a member has passed 60 years.

The first ward of this project was set up at the Dambagalla rural hospital in parallel with the Deyata Kirula exhibition and there are also wards at Dambulla, Jaffna and Ampara. We have two branches in Hambantota and Anuradhapura and we are now looking at having an Agrahara desk at each District Secretariat so that the policyholders could obtain government services and information on their policies from their own area.

The NITF has insured around 600,000 Sri Lankan migrant workers and paid over Rs. 20 million as compensation to employees who lost their jobs during the Libyan crisis. "We even chartered an aircraft to get them at our expenses", he said.

He said that they are now looking at improving this product so that more benefits could be offered to Sri Lankan employees working overseas. "Obtaining medical attention overseas is a problem for them and we are now looking at giving them an insurance card which would be accepted all over the world," he said.

He said a similar card would be introduced to Agrahara policyholders in the future.

He said that the migrant worker could enter any hospital overseas and get treated free and this card would even enable them to purchase a return air ticket if they lose their employment. The NITF invested Rs 1.2 billion in the Colombo City restructuring plan by taking shares of the Urban Development Authority (UDA) IPO and has contributed Rs. 2.2 billion to the national Budget. Commenting on their stability he said that they have a surplus fund of Rs. one billion. He also said they had a profit of Rs. 2.7 billion mainly through premiums in the last two quarters.