Ranchi, Jan. 2: Insurance companies active in the state have now devised a new way to take insurance policies to the last man in rural areas.

They have started to engage voluntary organisations and non-government organisations (NGOs) to sell their policies. They believe that the wide network of the NGOs, especially in rural areas, would help them spread their wings.

“We have started with Citizen Foundation to sell several of our insurance policies,” said K.K. Roy, the administrative officer of United India Insurance. The public sector insurance company has signed a memorandum of understanding with Citizen Foundation and is planning to do the same with more interested parties.

“Rural-people-friendly” insurance policies mainly dealing in livestock, horticulture, sericulture, dairy, floriculture, honey bee cultivation, poultry and such others, would be the main policies that the companies want the NGOs to take to the villagers on low premium. Knowing well that the rural population also suffers from huge financial difficulty during sickness, the NGOs also would be selling companies’ health insurance and road safety insurance.

The companies have also considered the villagers’ affordability for these insurance policies as the premium devised for these is as low as Rs 15.

“The concept of insurance itself is new to the villagers. As public sector companies, we want to take our services to the village needy. The NGOs, with their wide rural network and efforts to create awareness, would do the job efficiently,” believed Roy.

The voluntary organisations and NGOs that would sell polices of the companies, would receive the allotted commission for the job just as the agents do.

“The commission that the NGOs would receive from selling insurance policies would naturally go to the grassroots workers. Thus, there is no problem in voluntary organisations selling the policies,” observed Ganesh Reddy, the Citizen Foundation secretary.