About 700,000 out of Myanmar’s estimated 60 million population have a life insurance, state-run insurer Myanma Insurance Enterprise (MIE) data shows.
“The public have very little interest in insurance and there is a huge knowledge gap, so the numbers are very little,” MIE managing director U Aye Min Thein told Myanmar Business Today.
Mostly sailors and overseas workers opt to get life insurance coverage, while people employed locally seldom get insured.
“No one knows when accidents will happen, so everybody should get life insurances, especially workers,” Ko Myo Aung, who supervises a construction site, said.
Several categories of life insurance exist in Myanmar ranging from employee life insurance and marine life insurance to even snake-bite insurance. There’s also highway travel insurances with premiums of only K100-300, for which K5 million ($5,000) can be claimed in case of death.