September 11: A total of 41 percent of the population has got access to insurance as of mid-August 2022. The Insurance Board informed that the interest in insurance is growing among the general public because of the expansion of services of insurance companies and the increase in access due to new schemes.

According to the data published by the board, by mid-August 2022, 41.15 percent of the total population has been included in the insurance schemes of insurance companies. Compared to mid-August 2021, access to insurance among the people has increased by 13.64 percentage points. During the corresponding period of last fiscal year, only 27.51 percent of people had access to insurance.

The Insurance Board published the status of access to insurance based on the data collected from insurance companies including term insurance, short term insurance and foreign employment insurance. If the term insurance, short-term insurance and foreign employment life insurance are not included, the access to insurance is limited to just 16.68 percent. Similarly, the access to insurance is 38.26 percent based on the data other than foreign employment life insurance policy.

Despite the increase in access to insurance, the lack of liquidity in the financial sector has started affecting the business of insurance companies. Due to the lack of liquidity, the sale of insurance policies and the collection of insurance premiums of the insurance companies are getting affected.

Statistics of the board show that the number of non-life insurance policies decreased by 8.35 percent in mid-August 2022 compared to the corresponding period of last fiscal year. In mid-August 2021, non-life insurance companies had issued 241,837 insurance policies, which dropped to 221,642 by mid-August 2022.

Although the number of non-life insurance policies have declined, the number of life insurance policies is on the rise. By mid-August 2022, life insurance companies issued a total of 13,089,486 life insurance policies, which were only 8,587,044 in mid-August 2021. Life insurance policies increased by 52.43 percent in a single year.

Despite the increase in life insurance policies, the collection of insurance premium of the companies has been affected. The collection of insurance premiums of life insurance companies increased by 9.35 percent, while that of non-life companies increased by 49.68 percent. Compared to mid-August 2021, the total collection of insurance premium of all the insurance companies in mid-August 2022 decreased by 0.34 percent.

According to the data, by mid-August of the current year, insurance companies collected Rs 19.53 billion, which was Rs 19.60 billion in the same period of last year.

The board informed that by mid-August 2022, the number of offices and employees of insurance companies increased as well. Compared to last year, the number of branch offices increased by 9.57 percent and reached 3,363. Similarly, the number of employees working in insurance companies increased by 8.56 percent and reached 11,530.