MYANMA Insurance has seen a 30 percent increase since 2005 in the number of insurance policies taken out by property and factory owners to cover damage from natural disasters such as storms, floods and earthquakes, said an official from the state-run company.

“Weather conditions around the world are getting worse and they are also affecting Myanmar,” said Dr Maung Maung Thein, the general manager of Myanma Insurance.

“Because of this more people are realising that fire insurance alone isn’t enough to cover their property so they’ve extended their policies to include storms, floods and earthquake,” he said.

Myanma Insurance introduced natural disaster insurance 30 years ago but few policies were sold until a spate of disasters hit the country in the past two years.

Dr Maung Maung Thein said cyclone Marlar provided a wakeup call to many people when it slammed into Yangon in April 2006, damaging factories in Hlaing Tharyar Industrial Zone.

“We paid nearly US$1 million to an insured soft drink factory and K106 million to a wheat mill damaged by Marlar. Some other factories were also damaged but they didn’t have insurance so they had to pay for the damage themselves,” he said.

He said Myanma Insurance also paid compensation for some insured properties that were damaged last May by flooding and by a typhoon that hit Dagon Seikkan township in Yangon.

Dr Maung Maung Thein explained that the standard fire policy can be extended to cover damage from additional disasters – including storms, typhoons, cyclones, floods and earthquakes – by paying a higher premium.

“There are four types of fire insurance with annual premium fees ranging from K0.40 to K1.20 per K100 of coverage. To cover each type of disaster by extending fire insurance requires paying an additional premium of 10 percent,” he said.

“So far we’ve had more people taking insurance for storms and floods than for earthquakes,” he said.