Insurance important for growth of business.

"Insurance has become very important for the growth of the business and the development of economy," said EK Dastur, director of KM Dastur Reinsurance Brokers Pvt Ltd, Mumbai. "Overall insurance is required to provide value addition that enhances the ability of business to take more risks, yet fully protect a company's balance sheet."

He was addressing a talk program on 'Insurance' organized by the Nepal British Chamber -of Commerce and Industry and the British Embassy hereon 20th Feb 2002, Wednesday.

"The Nepali society is yet to become aware about insurance and its importance," said Rajendra Khetan, president of NBCCI. "Our society is still unaware about insurance."

Insurance markets around the world offer coverage for a specified event or Peril or even, on an all-risk covers basis. Risks covered today could be categorized as property, marine, oil/gas (onshore and offshore), aviation and space, liability, finance-trade credit, surety ship, bonds, export, personal lines etc.

"Insurance in today's context is more important than ever before as a risk transfer vehicle owing to the changing nature of risks caused by the impact of legislation, highly complex contracts and technology," said Dastur.

There are a total of 17 insurance companies registered in the country. Fifteen are Nepali insurance Companies and the remaining two are Indian. Two companies from the fifteen deal both in Life and General insurance while the remaining deal only in General insurance. Nepal Bima Sanstha is the oldest and the only semi-government insurance company in Nepal.

The international insurance market saw the worst in the 1990's. "The 90's market condition has been unprecedented," said Dastur. In addition to the very difficult times, the September 11^th World Trade Center (WTC) incident affected the insurance sector adversely. "For the first time, underwriters were required to estimated risks due to terrorism exposure before providing capacity and price." said Dastur.

Nepal chaired the XIII Insurance Congress Of Developing Countries

Kathmandu, March 7^th , 2002. Nepal has chaired XIII Insurance Congress Of Developing Countries which was held in Abuja, Nigeria from 24^th Feb to 27^th Feb. The main objective of this conference was to develop the inter-continental co-operation and to strengthen the insurance market in developing countries. Total 103 countries from Asia, Africa, South America and east Europe had participated in the conference. A team of participants lead by Dr. Praphulla Kumar Kafle , Chairman of beema samiti left kathmandu on 19 Feb, 2002.