It
seems Filipinos have not yet lose their confidence on life insurance companies
in the
Philippines. According
to Insurance Commissioner (IC) Emmanuel Dooc, more or less 32 million Filipinos
are now insured as of 2014, Manila Standard Today reports. This is due to the influx of
micro-insurance plan holders that totaled to 28 million on the same year.
Who
initiated such significant increase? Surprisingly, those in the low-income
generating sector did it. The next question is: what is the reason behind this?
Typhoon
Yolanda happened.
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| source: www.rappler.com |
We
have this impression that insurance is only designed for the middle- and
upper-class families. Getting an insurance policy is the last item on the list
of life priority goals of Filipinos or none at all. We’d rather spend our
hard-earned money on basic necessities such as food, clothing, and shelter. Considering
it is hard to get by these days, why would someone put their money on expensive
and time-bound life insurance plans?
On
the other hand, some of us who can afford buying a policy or two consider it as
an investment intended for future use. This is to mitigate risks followed by
untimely death, accidents, and any forms of loss that may jeopardize us financially.
It is like anticipating the bad scenarios before it happens and already placing
a “trampoline” beneath it so we can easily bounce back. The “trampoline” here
represents the insurance policy we want to avail based on our needs and
specifications.
Without
this so-called “trampoline”, some of the Yolanda survivors may not able to
recover from the devastating loss they’ve experienced. At the time of their
need, aside from turning to NGOs and the local government for financial
assistance, they’ve turned to institutions offering micro-insurance products
that fall under the non-life category.
As
a refresher, there are two types of insurance, namely, life and non-life or
general insurance. Investopedia defines life insurance “designed to protect the
income of families… in the event of the head of household’s death (or the
breadwinner of the family).” The latter refers to insurance policies related to
property loss due to accident, natural calamity and also includes health
insurance plans. Meanwhile, micro-insurance is a lighter version that can be
availed by the low-income generating families.
After
the onslaught of typhoon Yolanda, “over 140,000 households in the affected
provinces in the Visayas were paid from their micro-insurance coverage,” says
IC Emmanuel Dooc on Sun Star Cebu. Progressive Bank, a rural
bank in Iloilo, is one of those which extended its hand by granting their
clients a micro-insurance program called Akap,
as reported on Microinsurancephil’s blog site. Through this
bite-sized program, the survivors were able to cover up their expenses for
burial and house repairs. They’ve also used some of it to start a small
business.
This
is the prudential aspect of being insured and it is best practiced during natural
calamities such as what happened when typhoon Yolanda hit the Philippines which
claimed many lives and destroyed many properties.
Like this post? Visit http://www.philippineprudential.com/.
