INSURANCE WAS MORE BENEFICIAL FOR THE POOR

Insurance Plans were more beneficial to poor people rather than rich people. However people’s awareness to use insurance services were still low. Therefore, insurance needed to be publicized by all means, among them through Insurance Goes to Campus Campaign.

“A rich man, in the event that his factory were burned, could set up another factory. But a poor family, once they lose their family backbone would starve” Teddy Hailamsyah, President Director of PT Asuransi Central Asia (ACA) disclosed to Business News at the Campus of the Islamic University (UIN) Thursday (20/5).

A true story was told, a certain husband died of accident and yet he had a jobless wife, plus three little children. His death forced his wife to become a beggar, earning Rp 5,000.- perday, which was not enough for feeding her entire family. So Teddy gave charity of Rp 300 thousand to that family. The widow used the money to buy rice and bihun to be processed into nasi uduk (coconut milk rice) and sell it at the roadside. with just Rp 300,00 the family survived till now, she was even able to let her business grow. Imagine if she were to get something more than that. And yet insurance, at a very affordable premium could give one financial enforcement much more than that. To illustrate, based on a one permillion platform/per year, an insurance customer could get coverage worth Rp 10 million.

Therefore, to run an educative campaign on insurance at University campus stressing on the benefits of insurance means laying foundations of awareness for the young generation at early age. This was related to survey findings which unveiled that penetration level of Indonesians was still at the level of 1.8%. This was indicated by contribution of total national premium against GDP. This low contribution reflected the low degree of awareness of people on insurance and the need to insure.

Since 2006 FAPI which covered associations in the insurance industry kept on educating the public on the importance of insurance through the Insurance Day program through various events such as Insurance Goes to campus including lecture session, on the job training for lecturers.

Furthermore, educational insurance also opened employment opportunities for the young generation this was to consider that the turnover in insurance business was posted at Rp 100 trillion per year. The brighter side of it was that when in the past door to door insurance salesmen where not welcome (sometimes chased by dogs) today insurance was becoming more acceptable by the public.

In the future, the focus of insurance would be more on the health aspect, considering that healthcare expenses was becoming less and less affordable. The type of insurance products sought after by the people toay was car insurance and fire protection. For car insurance, in this 2010 companies set target to increase income from insurance by 20%. Meanwhile for fire insurance the potential was an increase of 40%.