Kathmandu. Government data shows that the scope of insurance is expanding in Nepal. But when the incessant rains of September sweep the tomato tunnel of a farmer in Kavre or the hot wind of the Terai snatches the livelihood of a daily wage laborer, the question arises, did that insurance policy really save the kitchen of the citizens? <\/p>\n
The November 2026 working paper ‘Inclusive Insurance as a Pillar of Financial TAG_CLOSE_em_30 Health’ released in November 2026 by CGAP, IAIS, and the Office of the Special Envoy of the UN Secretary-General, which has been taking initiatives at the global policy level for inclusive insurance, dissects this tricky question. The conclusion of the report is clear: financial inclusion is not just about opening a bank account or counting the number of insurance policies; The real ‘financial health’ is how quickly a citizen can survive a crisis without selling their assets, not borrowing at high interest rates, and without cutting the grass. <\/p>\n According to the ‘Global Findex 2025’ cited in the CGAP report, although financial access in developing countries has reached 75 percent, the number of adults who can take emergency care within 30 days to avert an impending crisis remains stuck at 56 percent. In the past three years, one in four people have experienced a natural disaster, with two-thirds losing their property or income. <\/p>\n The situation in Nepal is no different from this. If we look at the annual report of the Nepal Insurance Authority for the fiscal year 2081\/82, it is seen that about 48.33 percent of the population has reached the ambit of insurance, including short-term, short-term and foreign employment insurance policies. The government and the NEA have opened the way to reach out to the poor and marginalized class by giving licenses to seven micro insurance companies (3 life and 4 non-life). In the first quarter of the current fiscal year 2083\/84, three micro life insurers have collected about Rs 34.21 crore and four micro non-life insurers have collected Rs 24.31 crore. <\/p>\n But how much did this rise in numbers reduce the risk to the citizens? <\/p>\n To increase inclusivity, the Government of Nepal has been pouring billions of rupees into insurance subsidy for agricultural and livestock insurance. So far, about Rs 11.78 billion worth of insurance subsidy has been released. Foreign employment term life insurance has been made mandatory and loan-linked micro-insurance is also expanding. <\/p>\n Despite this, the NRA’s studies have acknowledged the bitter reality that crop insurance has not reached the real small farmers. Due to the cumbersome process of claim payment, delay in assessing the damage and lack of coordination with the local level, the compulsion of the farmers to approach the local government or creditor before getting insurance during a disaster has not been removed. As the CGAP report points out, when the claim payment is not made on time or the terms are difficult to understand, the insurance policy becomes just a piece of paper and the trust of the citizens is broken. <\/p>\n The report titled “Insurance through a Gender Lens: A FEMA-Meter Assessment in Nepal” released by the Insurance Authority of Nepal (IBA) in late TAG_OPEN_em_29 October 2026 ({TAG_CLOSE_em_29}} has brought out the inner workings of Nepal’s inclusive insurance in a very interesting way, which has been systematically praised in the CGAP report. <\/p>\n The study, which includes data from all 35 insurance companies across the country, says that the share of women in terms of the number of insured in the overall life insurance is 58 per cent and that of men is 42 per cent. However, when it comes to insurance premiums, men pay an average of Rs 42,592 per annum while women pay only Rs 21,054. That is, even though women are ahead in numbers, their financial security cover (insured) is only half that of men. <\/p>\n In short life insurance, however, the story is a bit different. Here, women pay slightly more than men (an annual average of Rs 489, Rs 398 for men) and women are ahead of the average amount of claim paid (about Rs 1,30,000, Rs 96,000 for men). However, in non-life insurance, the FEMA-meter has revealed the alarming fact that the gender identity of about a quarter (25 per cent) of the insured is ‘unknown’. How does policymaking reach the target group when the data is incomplete? <\/p>\n Not only that, the presence of women in the policy-making level and leadership of insurance companies is very weak. The fact that 50 percent of men got the opportunity in agent training, while only 37 percent of women got the opportunity, which proves that there is a gender gap in the distribution system. The reason behind this could be that in order to hide institutional affiliation, an agent license is issued in the name of the wife and the husband should actively work as an agent in parallel with his main profession or job. <\/p>\n The use of technology and the latest tools is imperative for micro insurance companies to reach the grassroots level. The CGAP report has also identified weak infrastructure and high operating costs as the main challenges on the supply side. A recent study conducted by the Insurance Authority of Nepal on the technical capacity of micro insurance companies has shown a grim picture, the entire digital system and cyber security of 40-50 branches of some micro-insurance companies and hundreds of employees are dependent on just one or two IT personnel. Standing on such a weak foundation of technical governance and data security, managing the insurance accounts of millions of poor citizens in rural areas is a big risk in itself. <\/p>\n The joint report of CGAP, IAIS and UNSGSA has given three clear messages to policymakers: first, measure the actual value of the customer and the speed of claim payment, not the number of insured; second, integrate insurance with the National Financial Inclusion Strategy, climate adaptation and social protection programs; and third, let’s bring products with flexible instalments and simple terms according to customer needs. <\/p>\n The ‘Sewa’ organization of India brought hot air insurance for women workers in the informal sector saved the women from paying 48 percent interest on the money by sending money directly to their accounts on the basis of temperature without any hassle on paper. Kenya’s cattle insurance prevented farmers from selling cattle during the drought. If Nepal could also implement the TAG_OPEN_em_28 recently released Insurance Index-based Insurance Directive, 2082 <\/em> without limiting it to paper, farmers affected by floods, droughts and cold waves would get immediate relief. <\/p>\n Ultimately, it is not just an achievement to increase the insurance penetration to 60 or 70 percent, which has crossed 48 percent in the annual report of the Insurance Authority. The real success will be considered the day when the Nepali citizen will not have to mortgage his property due to a minor disease or the destruction of his crops, but the micro-insurance policy in his pocket will give him the courage to rise with self-respect.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Kathmandu. Government data shows that the scope of insurance is expanding in Nepal. But when the incessant rains of September sweep the tomato tunnel of a farmer in Kavre or the hot wind of the Terai snatches the livelihood of a daily wage laborer, the question arises, did that insurance policy really save the kitchen […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":240212,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[45031,45067,45159],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-323101","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-banner-news-en","category-important-en","category-news-en"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/insurancekhabar.com\/ikbrapi\/wp\/v2\/posts\/323101","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/insurancekhabar.com\/ikbrapi\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/insurancekhabar.com\/ikbrapi\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/insurancekhabar.com\/ikbrapi\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/insurancekhabar.com\/ikbrapi\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=323101"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/insurancekhabar.com\/ikbrapi\/wp\/v2\/posts\/323101\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":323102,"href":"https:\/\/insurancekhabar.com\/ikbrapi\/wp\/v2\/posts\/323101\/revisions\/323102"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/insurancekhabar.com\/ikbrapi\/wp\/v2\/media\/240212"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/insurancekhabar.com\/ikbrapi\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=323101"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/insurancekhabar.com\/ikbrapi\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=323101"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/insurancekhabar.com\/ikbrapi\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=323101"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}