The Securities and Exchange Commission of Pakistan (SECP) is taking vigorous steps for the promotion of micro-insurance market to enhance the insurance penetration and financial inclusion. It is being done in the wake of Micro-insurance Rules that were issued to promote the micro-insurance market in Pakistan.
The SECP is encouraging all insurance companies to include micro-insurance business in their annual business plans. In this regard, a few steps which SECP is considering taking are to have lower capital requirements for dedicated micro-insurance companies or to reduce solvency requirements relating to micro-insurance business.
Another step to promote micro-insurance is encouraging insurance companies to invest in necessary technological infrastructure.
For this purpose, the SECP may relax the requirements relating to admissibility of investment in technological infrastructure for the purpose of solvency.
It may be added here that serious efforts for micro-insurance at the national level only picked up in the last decade with the advent of microfinance institutions (MFIs) and a mushrooming growth of NGOs. However, there is still tremendous scope for growth in this area.-PR