Over 90 per cent of people in Madhesh province lack access to insurance

Birgunj (Parsa)-  A 90.6 per cent of citizens of Madhesh province is out of reach of insurance. The total population of Madhesh province is 6 million 114 thousand. Attraction towards insurance is less here due to the lack of awareness about insurance and the practice of buying insurance schemes across the border from India.

Nepal Insurance Authority, Madhesh Province Office said that only 573 thousand and 433 people or 9.4 per cent of the population have purchased insurance policies in the province. This statistics shows that members of the general public have less attraction towards insurance. NIA Madhesh Province Office chief Kushum Sharma said that because the access to insurance in Madhesh province is low, it is necessary to advance the plan to insure the people of the entire province in coordination with all three levels of government.

“Access to insurance in Madhesh province is seen to be low. Since the economic and health level of the people here is weak, it is necessary to develop the practice of providing insurance to the people of the whole province by coordinating all three tiers of the government,” he stressed.

According to him, like the Karnali provincial government had provided insurance to all the people there, there is a need to insure all the people in the Madhesh province as well, and the authority is ready to provide necessary facilitation for that. Not only in Madhesh province, the access to insurance is not satisfactory for the citizens of the country as a whole. Unitil April 12, 2024, only 43.3 per cent of the population across the country has access to insurance.

Still 56.7 per cent of the population is beyond the reach of life insurance. By 2075 BS, 17 per cent of people across the country had access to insurance. Assistant Director of the NIC Madhesh Province Office, Nirmal Khanal opined that the lack of knowledge about insurance literacy among the citizens of the Province and the tradition of purchasing insurance policy of Indian insurance companies in the border market has reduced the access to insurance.

“Due to high poverty and illiteracy in the Madhesh province, the idea that one should buy insurance policy has not developed among the lay people. Due to the Indian border market, the practice of purchasing insurance policy of Indian insurance companies from across the border, we have not been able to increase the general public’s attraction to insurance as expected,” he added.

Khanal explained that the attraction towards insurance has not increased in the Madhesh province due to the tendency to seek unfair benefits from insurance, lack of human resources in the branches/sub-branches of insurers and not giving priority to insurance because of misunderstandings about insurance.