February 15: The general public’s access to life insurance has increased by ten percent in the last one year alone. This has been revealed from the data provided by the Insurance Board up to mid-January of the current fiscal year (FY).

According to the data, 35 percent of Nepalis have access to life insurance as of mid-January 2022. By mid-January last year, 24.86 percent of Nepalis had access to insurance.

Based on numbers, 31,57,869 Nepalis purchased insurance policy in last year. As of mid-January last year, 73,76,660 Nepalis were covered by insurance scheme. By mid-January of the current fiscal year, that number has reached 15.34 million.

The figure is more than the government's target of access to insurance. The government had set a target of expanding the reach of life insurance to 33.33 percent of Nepalis by mid-July of the current fiscal year.

However, the data of the Insurance Board has confirmed that access to insurance has reached 35 percent of Nepalis by mid-January.

The board estimates that 40 percent of Nepalis will have access to insurance by mid-July this year.

The board claimed that the access to insurance reached 35 percent of the population, ruling out the possibility of duplication. The same person is also insured two or more times. Considering this situation, there is an international practice of calculating access to insurance by reducing the total number of insurance policies by 5 percent.

Accordingly, the access to insurance has been calculated, said Rajuraman Poudel, executive director of the Insurance Board. According to the board, 1,10,41,088 life insurance policies have been issued, so far. According to Poudel, the number was deducted by 5 percent.

According to the preliminary report of the  National Census 2021 (29.1 million), more than 36 percent of Nepalis have access to insurance. However, the board said that the actual access to insurance will be calculated later as per the final report of the census.

Insurance companies started issuing life insurance policies in Nepal almost five decades ago. However, its scope did not expand for a long time.

However, access to the insurance market has skyrocketed in the last five years. Five years ago, only 7 percent of Nepalis had access to insurance.

The number of people taking out term insurance has increased significantly. The number of people availing of such insurance policies increased by about 45 percent in the last year. The number of people taking out term insurance has also increased significantly.

The number of people purchasing term insurance policies has also increased significantly. As a result, access to insurance has increased significantly, Poudel said.

He estimates that 40 percent of the people will have access to insurance by next July. “We are working to make insurance accessible to 40 percent of the people by next July,” Poudel said.