The prospect of micro-insurance is very bright in our country. Although rich people are buying insurance and we are targeting affluent segment of the mass to sell our policy, but in fact, they have no necessity of insurance because they are well off in all respect. It becomes a sort of obligatory sell or sometimes they do it for income tax coverage etc. However,mainly the grassroots people need it because in absence of the main earning the whole family falls in danger.
Micro-insurance opportunity is better in our country because people have less capacity to pay insurance premium. If we ask somebody to pay Tk 24,000 a year it rounds off as Tk 2000 monthly, so it is easy for many to afford it but if it is said to pay Tk 24,000 at a time it becomes a burden for them.
Now, we (Guardian Insurance) are running some micro programmes with some NGOs and premium for them is very less, I mean the yearly premium is only Tk 300 to 600 and this is so easy to afford for the rural people. We now have around 1 crore clients of micro credit across the country.
Around 3 to 4 crore people in the country depended on the micro credit, so if we are able to bring this number of people under micro-insurance coverage then it is possible to cover 4 crore people through this process. If we go for selling these through our agents, it will be difficult because we have to pay commission to the agents and if we do it through NGOs, it is much less costly. It just needs a trust and a partnership.
Now an individual insurance regulatory authority is working in the country, the body is working actively and we, the companies are working, the IDRA has been trying to advise us that if we want to do sustainable business we must do ethical business.
