NORTH MACEDONIA: MIA: only 5% of registered agricultural businesses use insurance

14 February 2022 —
According to the information of MIA (Media Information Agency), trust in insurance is the lowest among farmers, which means that interest in buying insurance policies among agricultural producers in the country is at a very low level - out of over 90,000 registered agricultural holdings, less than 5% insure their production, osigurajse.net wrote.

According to Gjorge VOJNOVIC, Director of Triglav, such low interest is influenced by several factors - perception that insurance is a service they cannot afford, unprofitable production, old plantations, fewer workers in the sector, lack of trust in insurance, previous experience of dealing with problems in the segment, especially in cases of natural disasters and accidents. "In these situations, farmers rely mainly on state support and assistance, which contributes to creating a completely wrong perception that they do not need insurance", he said. He explained that even though farmers are aware of the vulnerability of this sector, as well as that insurance premium is subsidized 60% by the state, their interest in insurance is still low. He agreed that lack of information is also an important factor.

On the other hand, the president of the National Federation of Farmers Vase MOJSOSKA does not agree that lack of information is one of the reasons. According to her, despite huge damage done by climate change, farmers do not opt from such policies as insurance companies for various reasons do not pay. "Today we should all ask ourselves which path our agriculture will take, whether we will protect it from climate change or leave as it is", said MOJSOSKA.

Insurance expert Klime POPOSKI told MIA that one of the general reasons for low demand is that farmers are not sufficiently aware of the negative impact of climate change, they have insufficient financial education, and there are always some manipulative conditions stated in contracts by insurance companies.

He agreed that a need to apply a model like that in Turkey and Spain is clear. "My proposal is to apply a model similar to Spain or Turkey - the state does not provide subsidies for agricultural production, but subsidies for insurance premiums to make it mandatory, every farmer who applies for a subsidy for agricultural production must have to insure, money from insurance should go to the insurance pool and payment for damages to be exclusively from licensed or authorized claims assessors who, being agro-economists, will be able to realistically and quickly perform the assessment, in other words the one who uses subsidies for production, must buy insurance, the state will subsidize 60%, and the product must be unified as in the case of motor insurance" he explained.



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