More than 8 million residential properties in Turkey still need to be covered by earthquake insurance, according to Resit CAKAS, President of the Association of Insurance Agencies (SAB), informed Middle East Insurance Review. Resit CAKAS noted that at present, in Turkey approximately 9.6 million houses are insured.

Resit CAKAS mentioned that one of the main problem regarding the earthquake insurance policies coverage degree issued by the Turkish Catastrophe Insurance Pool (TCIP) is that many households fail to renew the earthquake insurance policy when the original contract has expired. He said that a large part of TCIP contracts are bought by those with lease agreements.

"Currently, TCIP's monthly premium is just over TRY 10 per dwelling. If we can increase this cost to TRY 25-30 per month, people can get more services and the risk coverage limit can increase significantly".

Resit CAKAS added that insurance agents would be the biggest channel to grow the pool coverage because "65% of the production in the sector is through agents".