'No corporate interest' in disaster insurance
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The government's insurance scheme for natural-disaster compensation has not yet proved popular with corporations, which still prefer to buy coverage from private insurers, says one company.
Nattawut Nganpinyo, executive vice president of Falcon Insurance, said most of its clients had renewed their policies against property damage after the unprecedented flooding last year. Moreover, new clients are also buying insurance from the company, he said.
“No one has bought the government insurance via Falcon,” he said. The company has joined the government insurance scheme, which started on March 28.
The government offers household catastrophe protection with compensation limited at Bt100,000 and premiums at 0.5 per cent of insured amount. It charges a low premium rate of 1 per cent for small and medium-sized enterprises and 1.25 per cent for large companies with claim payments limited at 30 per cent of insured amount.
The government has set up an insurance fund of Bt50 billion aimed at providing cheap insurance after private insurers demanded high premiums in the wake of the flood disaster.
Nattawut said his products were still attractive to manufacturers who have plants in flood-risk areas.
Most of Falcon’s clients are European investors, he said.
He did not reveal premium rates, only saying that they varied according to perceived risks.
He conceded that Falcon’s former business partner, an European reinsurer, had declined to accept reinsurance contracts from his company. But he said Falcon was not worried about finding new partners.
“We talked to four or five regional reinsurers in Hong Kong recently,” he said.
