IC wants PAGASA, insurers to help create new policy

The Insurance Commission (IC) wants to create a database as foundation for indexed insurance products that are already popular in other Southeast Asian countries. “There is a need for us to gather enough data in a cooperative endeavor. This is an area where public-private cooperation is needed," said Insurance Commissioner Vida Chiong. The commission wants private insurers to help, and will ask the Philippine Atmospheric, Geophysical and Astronomical Services Administration also to help regulators and industry players craft a commercially viable catastrophe insurance. Earlier, the German government’s Gesellschaft für Technische Zusammenarbeit (GTZ), in association with Coop Life Insurance and Mutual Benefit Services or CLIMBS, launched its own indexed insurance as a microinsurance policy for Filipino farmers. The German technical cooperation agency has started gathering weather-related data in Leyte province where the microinsurance program is piloted. With the insight they could distill from the weather patterns and how these have impacted the farming sector, the Germans intend to improve the indexed insurance with a view to developing a product that could be sold across the Philippines. — VS/JE, GMANews.TV