Sri Lanka insurers in campaign to raise awareness

Apr 28, 2011 (LBO) - Sri Lankan insurance companies are to launch a campaign to raise public awareness of their products, saying they were not understood properly by people and penetration was far too low. The industry comprises of 18 insurance companies offering either life insurance, non life of general insurance or both classes together as composite insurers.

"However, the ˜insurance product’ has not been perceived positively and understood correctly by the general public when compared with other financial services in the market," said Ramal Jasinghe, president of the Insurance Association of Sri Lanka (IASL).

"This is mainly due to the lack of awareness of the concept of insurance among the insurable public," he told a news conference.

The industry faces a low market penetration with only 10.4 percent of the entire population of 20 million signed up for a life insurance policy.

A larger percentage of the population, however, is aware of the benefits of ˜general insurance’ products, particularly ˜motor insurance’ which the law requires vehicle owners to have.

IASL secretary Deepthi Lokuarachchi said lack of understanding of the benefits of insurance to policyholder