Thailand’s Finance Ministry plans to tap into private companies to help expedite the payment of outstanding claims involving four dissolved non-life insurance companies.
The Bangkok Post quoted the Permanent Finance Secretary Krisada Chinavicharana as saying that the move to outsource part of the claim payments will speed up the process to 10,000 policyholders per month, up from the current rate of 300 per month.
Krisada is chairman of the General Insurance Fund (GIF). The GIF, under the Office of the Insurance Commission (OIC), is tasked to liquidate payments to COVID-19 policyholders of the dissolved insurance companies.
The permanent finance secretary has said that due to a staff shortage at the GIF, only 5,000 policyholders out of tens of thousands of claimants have been paid, the Bangkok Post reported.
The report also quoted Krisada as saying that the GIF had sufficient funds to pay out the claims, tallying THB7bn in cash. He noted, however, that the GIF may need to issue bonds or seek bank loans to increase its liquidity to pay the COVID claims, according to the report.
Krisada was also quoted by the Bangkok Post as saying that the OIC may also look into injecting its own funds into the GIF. The permanent finance secretary said that the total amount of outstanding COVID claims is approximately tens of billions of baht.
The Bangkok Post also quoted an anonymous ministry source who said that it may take the GIF 60 years to repay the loans to banks if it would seek additional funds to pay out the COVID claims.
In 2021, two non-life insurers — Asia Insurance and The One Insurance — were forced to shut down because of liquidity problems stemming from losses due to COVID-19 insurance claims.
In 2022, the Finance Ministry also revoked the licenses of two other non-life insurers — Southeast Insurance and Thai Insurance —which also defaulted on compensation claims.
