"Galym Tashmukhanbetovich, how, in your opinion, can life insurance be an assistant of the state to support the population in hard and other situations requiring outside help?"
"Life insurance is an important tool able to satisfy economic and social needs of our society. In many countries, it acts as a guarantor of every society member’s welfare. In our country, this segment of insurance develops dynamically, too.
With the help of life insurance products, every person can provide himself or herself with financial protection for a case of illness or disability. A person can receive additional payments from his pension savings without waiting for the retirement age; also, he or she can provide financial stability for the family in case of unforeseen and sometimes emergency events."
"Can you give positive examples of social support for the population by the life insurance in other developed countries of the world?"
"Our life is constantly exposed to various risks. Therefore, in the developed countries, foreseeable people insure their lives not to make their relatives worry about financial problems in the event of sudden death or illness. We can take a continental model as an example. It is used in Germany, the Netherlands, Australia, Switzerland and France. It is based on compulsory social insurance and services directed to various forms of insurance: medical, pension and unemployment insurance.
There, the state guarantees the obligation fulfillment by the social insurance bodies if they experience financial problems. At the same time, the state takes measures against the influence of cheap labor in the labor market.
In the Netherlands, Denmark, Germany, Belgium and France, the basis of the poverty fighting system is the establishment of mandatory minimum wage for all employers, and this wage is sufficient to meet the employees’ basic needs."
"In your opinion, what legislative initiatives can give a push to the development of the life insurance market for greater social support of the population?"
"The population’s well-being growth and improvement of the country’s economic state as a whole can have a beneficial effect on the development of the life insurance market.
In the future, I consider it necessary to introduce online insurance services and use electronic insurance policies for the development of compulsory and voluntary insurance.
In addition, it is necessary to create conditions for the development of life and health insurance products. Tax incentive programs, i.e. changes in the taxation mechanism applied to the cumulative life insurance agreements, can be the main impetus in this area. This will allow expanding the public measures for the social protection of the population, increase the level of population’s savings including the formation of target capital, and become an additional source of long-term financing for the economy."
