Capitol wants to insure 80 percent of farmers, fisherfolk by yearend

Expanding the insurance coverage to barangay workers, farmers, fisher folk and other informal sectors is one of the targets set by the provincial government for 2012.

This was set during the two-day strategic planning and target setting led by Governor Gwendolyn Garcia with Capitol department heads and consultants at a resort in Moalboal town.

Garcia admitted that the target is ambitious but the province intends to have 80 percent of all farmers and fisher folk insured with the Philippine Crops Insurance Corporation (PCIC) by the end of the year. The coverage will reportedly extend to crops, livestock, equipment and personal accident insurance.

“It is important that we will be able to extend this service to as many. We are talking here of 45,000 fisherfolk and farmers,” Garcia said.

To date, 25 percent of the number is already covered since the third quarter of last year.

Garcia said it took time to conceptualize the program, which included haggling for a very low premium to be paid to PCIC. With the template in place, implementing the program for the next batch of farmers and fisher folk would then be easier, she said.

Aside from the PCIC coverage, the province is also targeting over 120,000 additional coverage of Philippine Health Insurance Corporation to other informal sectors like the habal- habal and trisikad drivers, including farmers and fisherfolk who are yet to be enrolled with Philhealth.

Garcia said coverage should be completed by the second quarter of the year as long as the province will have the list of names from the towns.

The group accident insurance of Government Service Insurance System (GSIS) extended all barangay officials, tanods, barangay health workers, barangay nutrition scholars, barangay animal health aide, day care workers, bantay dagat members and lupong tagapamayapa has been transferred to PCIC.

Garcia explained that with the same premium of P35 per person, PCIC has higher coverage from P40,000 to P50,000 plus additional medical reimbursement of P5,000 compared to the P2,000 of GSIS. Processing is also reportedly faster.

Garcia said Cebu is the first local government unit that has extended the biggest number of insurance coverage to informal sectors.