National Insurance Company launches micro-insurance products in Gujarat

NIC has decided to cover the urban and rural BPL families through their products called Swasthya (health) and Suraksha (life).

The company says that though they are a commercial entity, they have undertaken the project as part of their corporate social responsibility.

The company, with the help of NGOs, will adopt villages in the rural areas. The two policies, Gramin Swasthya and Gramin Bima policy, will take off from Himmatnagar. It will encompass all the benefits,

including life, health, and maternity among others.

“The NGOs are making people aware about the benefits of the insurance. They will also help us prepare the list of people who fall in the BPL category. They will list the candidates as well as sell the insurance,” said Dr S Maharana, Deputy Manager, NIC Gujarat.

Although the government’s pilot project — Rashtriya Swasthya Bima Yojana — is underway in Bharuch, Dahod, Jamnagar, Kutch and Patan, NIC is focussing on different areas.

“Our focus is Sabarkantha, Mehsana and Banaskantha. Then we will move on to Saurashtra,” said Dr Maharana.

Several private and public insurance companies like ICICI Lombard, Tata-AIG, IFFCO-Tokio and others are already providing micro health insurance as part of the Rashtriya Swasthya Bima Yojana.

Insurance is fast emerging as an important strategy even for the low-income people, who are engaged in a wide variety of income generation activities. They remain exposed to a lot of risks mainly because of the absence of cost-effective risk hedging instruments, said Dr Mahrana.

The NGOs working jointly with NIC have already come up with the benchmark survey.