The Union Finance Minister, Mr Pranab Mukherjee, on Saturday said that the general insurance coverage in the country needed to be extended exponentially to realise the Government's goal of an inclusive India.

“The current coverage is restricted to around three crore people. In percentage terms, the coverage is poor – less than 10 per cent. Awareness of the general insurance products, relevant for rural and semi-urban areas, such as crop insurance, health and fire insurance, is almost non-existent,” he said inaugurating a general insurance agent training institute at Raghunathganj, some 200 km north of here.

This agent training institute has been set up by Universal Sompo General Insurance Company Ltd (USGIL) – a joint venture between Allahabad Bank, Indian Overseas Bank, Karnataka Bank, Dabur Investment Corp and Sompo Japan Inc.

This is the first such institute by USGIL and it planned to establish three more agent training facilities in Varanasi, Bangalore and Mumbai in the near future, according to Mr O.N. Singh. The institute, accredited by the IRDA, has complete physical infrastructure including online training facility. It will groom agents for USGICL and other insurance companies as well.

USGIL also opened its branch in this remote area in Murshidabad District of West Bengal, bordering Bangladesh. Mr Koichi Hattori, Managing Director of USGIL, said the institute would start off with 800 trainees, and by 2011-12, it aimed to train 5,000 agents.

>jayanta_mallick@thehindu.co.in