Insurance Companies Should Be More Proactive In Handling Claims Processes Affected By Floods

The car was flooded. (Irfan Meidianto / VOI)

JAKARTA - The Indonesian General Insurance Association (AAUI) encourages insurance companies to be more proactive in handling claims processing from customers affected by floods that hit a number of areas in DKI Jakarta, Banten and West Java.

"Insurance companies should respond quickly and proactively regarding the risk of flooding," said AAUI Executive Director Dody Dalimunthe in Jakarta, Friday, January 3.

Dody also encouraged general insurance companies to list all the insured affected by the flood so that they could be easily contacted. Regarding the readiness of general insurance companies to handle natural disaster claims, he said that many companies have anticipated this by making announcements regarding the steps in submitting claims.

"They also mentioned a call center that could be contacted," he said.

AAUI said that insurance related to property or property and motorized vehicles is the largest share of the general insurance industry market.

AAUI, he continued, appealed to people who hold property and motor vehicle insurance policies who are victims of floods to ensure that the policy has an expansion of the risk of flooding.

The expansion of flood risk, he said, was carried out by attaching clause 4.3 for property insurance and clause 12 for motor vehicles.

He also appealed to the insured property insurance that is guaranteed the expansion of the flood, to take preventive steps such as saving goods that can still be saved to reduce damage.

As for motor vehicle insurance that is guaranteed to expand floods, he appealed not to force start a flooded vehicle because it makes engine damage worse.

"It is expected to immediately submit a claim to the company that issued the policy so that it can be immediately taken to the garage by a crane," he said.

Until now, the value of the loss is still waiting for claims reports from all general insurance companies with figures that are not final and are still growing because the identification and verification process is in process.

Data from AAUI, which was collected based on the performance of the January-September 2019 period, noted that property and motor vehicle insurance contributed 50 percent of the premium market share, amounting to 26 percent and 24 percent, respectively.

As an illustration, the realization of property insurance claims in the January-September 2019 period reached IDR 4.73 trillion or an increase of 17.1 percent by IDR 691 billion from the same period in 2018 which reached IDR 4.4 trillion.

Meanwhile, the realization of motor vehicle insurance claims for the nine months of 2019 reached IDR 6 trillion or an increase of 5.5 percent of IDR 314 billion compared to the same period in 2018 which reached IDR 5.68 trillion.

During the January-September 2019 period, total general insurance claims paid reached IDR 25.8 trillion, an increase of 28.8 percent compared to the same period in 2018. Of that amount, the contribution of claims paid for property insurance reached 18.3 percent and vehicle insurance. motorized account for 23.3 percent.