Claims Debt Swell, Ministry Of BUMN Will Close Jiwasraya

Jiwasraya office building in Gondangdia area, Jakarta. (Didi Kurniawan / VOI)

JAKARTA - The Ministry of State-Owned Enterprises (BUMN) has revealed that PT Asuransi Jiwasraya (Persero) will be closed, after restructuring and transferring policies belonging to Jiwasraya customers to a new company, Nusantara Life.

Deputy Minister for State-Owned Enterprises (BUMN) II Kartika Wirjoatmodjo said that currently the ministry together with Jiwasraya management are trying to create a policy restructuring scheme. This process is expected to begin next August.

"In the end, it closed. But we hope that all of these policy holders will want to move. Because Jiwasraya does not have any participants," he said, in Jakarta, Tuesday, July 7.

The man who is familiarly called Tiko said that in carrying out restructuring efforts, policyholders will be invited to negotiate directly.

Furthermore, according to Tiko, one of the things that will be offered in the negotiations is the rate of return of each policy which is currently considered very high in the range of 10 percent to 14 percent to 6 percent to 7 percent.

"We also proposed restructuring options for both traditional policies and saving plan policies. What will the restructuring look like. If we agree, this scheme will start in August to start calling policyholders to carry out this restructuring," he explained.

Tiko said that the restructuring process is expected to take until December 2021. During this process, the ministry will prepare a new company. Later, Nusantara Life will be under the auspices of the insurance holding company PT Bahana Indonesia Business Development (BPUI) (Persero).

"The results of the restructuring will of course still need PMN support because it will not be possible with a negative equity condition, reaching Rp35 trillion. So of course with such a negative equity, it is impossible for us to form a new company without PNM," he explained.

Jiwasraya's Claims Debt Swells

Tiko said PT Asuransi Jiwasraya (Persero) 's debt to its customers, as of May 31, reached Rp. 18 trillion, an increase from the previous debt of only Rp. 16 trillion. Of this amount, Rp. 16.5 trillion of which were unpaid claims from the saving plan. Even though at the end of March, around Rp470 billion had been paid.

The details of the claim debts consist of payment arrears to 17,452 participants who are JS Saving Plan policy holders, 22,735 participants who are traditional corporate policy holders, and 12,410 participants who are traditional policy holders. The claims payable to the JS Saving Plan were recorded at Rp. 16.5 trillion.

Meanwhile, the rest, said Tiko, Rp. 600 billion was an unpaid corporate traditional insurance claim. Meanwhile, for retail corporations there are around Rp. 200 billion and Rp. 700 billion, so that the total is Rp. 1.5 trillion.

"As of May 31, the condition of claims that have occurred and have not been paid out of the saving plan is around Rp. 16.5 trillion. A total of Rp. 1.5 trillion is traditional and has also not been paid due to deteriorating liquidity conditions," he said.

According to him, Jiwasraya was indeed under enormous pressure. The first pressure is from an increase in high interest-induced liabilities.

Furthermore, Kartika said, Jiwasraya's total liabilities are currently greater than its assets. Based on the records of the BUMN Ministry, the state-owned company assets are only Rp. 17 trillion. Meanwhile, the company's total equity is currently minus IDR 35.9 trillion.