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<h1 class="entry-title">Sri Lanka’s private insurance providers exploit language barrier: Research</h1>
<aside id="gmail-meta-127163" class="entry-meta"><span class="gmail-by-author"> Author </span><span class="gmail-author gmail-vcard gmail-metaauthor"><a class="gmail-url gmail-fn gmail-n" href="http://www.lankabusinessonline.com/author/editor/" title="View all posts by LBO" rel="author">LBO</a></span><br><span class="gmail-posted-on">Posted on </span><a href="http://www.lankabusinessonline.com/sri-lankas-private-insurance-providers-exploit-language-barrier-research/" title="10:20 AM" class="gmail-post-time"><time class="entry-date gmail-updated" datetime="2018-06-15T10:20:14+00:00">June 15, 2018</time></a><span class="gmail-posted-in"> | </span><a href="http://www.lankabusinessonline.com/category/featured/" rel="tag">Featured</a>, <a href="http://www.lankabusinessonline.com/category/industry/insurance/" rel="tag">Insurance</a>, <a href="http://www.lankabusinessonline.com/category/lead-story/" rel="tag">Lead Story</a> </aside>
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<p>Jun 15, 2018 (LBO) – Sri Lanka’s top five general insurance providers
which account for two-thirds of the market share, is seem to exploit
the language barrier as none of them issue insurance documents for
certain policies in Sinhala and Tamil, a recent research showed.</p>
<p>The research study conducted by Verité Research has found out that
solving the lethargy on language policy will help SMEs Island-wide when
it comes to natural disaster insurance in Sri Lanka.</p>
<p>SME owners who were affected by the May 2017 floods in the Ratnapura
district, were of the view that they had purchased natural disaster
insurance through agents representing private insurance companies.</p>
<p>“However, they realised that they had been misinformed by the agent
selling the insurance only after the disaster, when they attempted to
claim their compensation,” Verité Research said.</p>
<p>“The SME owners had not been able to verify the assurances provided
by the agents as the documents they signed were exclusively in English.”</p>
<p>The English literacy level is substantially lower in the regions
outside the western province and it exposes the vulnerability of
regional and rural business to potential exploitation by insurance
agents.</p>
<p>“Generally, these agents are not direct employees of insurance companies,” Verité Research highlighted.</p>
<p>“These agents are incentivised to sell as many insurance policies as
possible as remuneration is based on the premiums collected and the
number of new enrollments.”</p>
<p>The availability of fire insurance policy documents in all three languages of selected insurance companies is illustrated below.</p>
<p>According to Verité Research, all selected companies have reported
that the documents were readily available in English but only People’s
Insurance supplied the documents in the Sinhala language.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.lankabusinessonline.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/insurance.jpg"><img class="gmail-alignnone gmail-wp-image-127164 gmail-size-full" src="http://www.lankabusinessonline.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/insurance.jpg" alt="" width="449" height="559"></a></p>
<p>Subsequent to an application sent by Verité to receive information on
the matter, the Insurance Board of Sri Lanka has replied by stating
that No rules or any related documents have been issued by the Insurance
Board of Sri Lanka on specifying language to be used in drafting
insurance related documents.</p>
<p>“Regulations in the banking sector have addressed the language policy
problem by issuing a direction to all licensed commercial banks,
specifying that the terms and conditions of banking products and
services shall be made available to customers in their preferred
language,” Verité said.</p>
<p>“As of yet, there is no equivalent regulation in the insurance
industry requiring companies to provide insurance documents in a
customer compatible Sri Lankan language.”</p></div>
<br>-- <br><div class="gmail_signature" data-smartmail="gmail_signature">=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+<br><br> Harold F. Schiffman<br><br>Professor Emeritus of <br> Dravidian Linguistics and Culture <br>Dept. of South Asia Studies <br>University of Pennsylvania<br>Philadelphia, PA 19104-6305<br><br>Phone: (215) 898-7475<br>Fax: (215) 573-2138 <br><br>Email: <a href="mailto:haroldfs@gmail.com" target="_blank">haroldfs@gmail.com</a><br><a href="http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/~haroldfs/" target="_blank">http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/~haroldfs/</a> <br><br>-------------------------------------------------</div>
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