State Life to launch pension scheme for govt, private employees: CEO

KARACHI: The State Life Insurance Corporation of Pakistan (SLIC) will soon launch a new pension scheme to solve the pension problem of government and private sector employees.

SLIC Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Shoaib Javed Hassan said on Thursday this scheme would provide lifelong pension to retired employees.

In a talk with a select group of media persons here, he said Karachi journalists were not taking much advantage of the health card scheme, introduced by the federal government for media workers. “Our corporate health product is receiving great acceptance. Our Takaful product is also gradually improving and we have come in the top three in this field,” he added.

Accompanied by SLIC Executive Director Dr Aftab Imam, Shoaib Hassan said that the corporation, in collaboration with the federal and provincial governments, had decided to introduce a lifetime pension product for all retired employees. He said the outline of the proposed pension scheme would be ready in a month, the summary of which would be sent to the federal government for approval. People over the age of 70 would also be able to benefit from the proposed pension scheme for retired employees.

It is expected that the proposed pension scheme would be introduced this year. The SLIC CEO said the institution was also working on primary healthcare projects in Sindh in collaboration with the Sindh government and a working group had been established under the chairmanship of the Sindh chief minister in this regard. The Sindh government wanted to improve primary healthcare in the province, and the working group was working on it.

In response to a question, Shoaib Hassan said the growth of the corporation’s group insurance was very encouraging. This year, the corporation was going to give its policyholders the biggest bonus in history. Due to reasonable prices and facilities, corporate health was also receiving great acceptance. Similarly, the growth of Takaful products was also encouraging.

In response to another question, he said media workers from Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa and Punjab were benefiting greatly from the health card scheme. However, the use of health cards by journalists from Karachi was very limited. Perhaps journalists from Karachi were not very aware of it, he added. In this regard, the State Life Insurance Corporation would launch a regular campaign to raise awareness among journalists in collaboration with the Karachi Press Club.