KATHMANDU, July 7 (Xinhua) -- Nepal's insurance regulator is set to reduce insurance premium against combined risks from terrorism, strikes and malicious damages with the Himalayan country observing such incidents substantially reduced in the recent years.
The Insurance Board (IB), the insurance sector regulator, on Thursday announced that the premium rate has been reduced to 200 Nepali Rupees (1.92 U.S. dollar) per policy amount of 1 million rupees (9,618 U.S. dollar) from existing 260 Nepali Rupees (2.5 U.S. dollar) per policy amount of one million rupees, to be implemented from July 16. The date is the first day of new fiscal year 2017-18 in Nepal.
"As we are hardly seeing any incident of terrorism- related sabotages and the number of strikes being organized by political and other forces is also nominal, we are implementing the reduced insurance premium for coverage of damages from terrorism and strikes," Shreeman Karki, director of the board told Xinhua on Thursday.
During the period from 2008 to 2013, a total of 4,451 incidents of small and bigger strikes as the country had been observing a turbulent period of transition after the end of civil war in 2006, according to a study by Nepal Rastra Bank, the central bank of Nepal.
However, since the second constituent assembly elections were held in 2013, the number and frequency of strikes being organized by various political and non political forces have gone down drastically, barring a prolonged strikes in southern plain when Nepal promulgated the new constitution in 2015.
Nepal has also converted the Insurance Pool created to cover damages from insurgency related activities, to Reinsurance Company, with the country on the way to complete peace process that began in 2006.
