Forte Insurance (Cambodia) Plc will team up with civil society organisations to study the feasibility of providing freshwater aquaculture insurance services in the Kingdom.
Forte Insurance, Commercialisation of Aquaculture for Sustainable Trade- (CAST) Cambodia and the Syngenta Foundation for Sustainable Agriculture are due to sign a feasibility study agreement on June 3, according to a joint press release issued on May 28.
Scheduled to be conducted from the date of signing through to October next year, the first-of-its-kind study will look at current production and risk management challenges facing farmers, and its findings could potentially help develop an appropriate insurance product, the release said.
Forte Insurance group CEO Youk Chamroeunrith told The Post on May 31 that the scope of insurance coverage extends beyond the services and industrial sectors, to agriculture.
“Climate change is radically remaking the world and is having a major impact on organic fish farming and vegetable growing,” he said.
Depending on location and season, aquaculture systems may be vulnerable to the consequences of climate change, which disrupt weather patterns and alter the predictability of water availability, quality and accessibility.
Aquaculture is a growing part of the Kingdom’s agricultural economy, employing about six million people, mostly smallholder farmers, and contributes 2.4 per cent of the nation’s gross domestic product (GDP), the latest Fisheries Administration data showed in 2018.
Chamroeunrith added: “We are studying the ways in which we could potentially extend a hand to the agricultural sector, by providing insurance services and thereby transferring farmers’ risks to insurance companies.”
The insurance sector in Cambodia earned $271.5 million in premiums last year, increasing by 7.31 per cent from $253 million in 2019, the Insurance Association of Cambodia (IAC) reported on May 12.
Of that, general and life insurance premiums came to $113.8 and $152.3 million, surging by 10.5 and 6.6 per cent year-on-year, and accounting for 41.9 and 56.1 per cent of the total.
Micro-insurance premiums were to the tune of $5.4 million, down by 24.6 per cent year-on-year, and accounted for just two per cent of the total, the IAC said.
