Punjab govt to establish insurance company

LAHORE: The Punjab government has been working for establishing an insurance company of the province following the good performance of the insurance sector of the country.

In this regard, a couple of meetings have been held for deliberations. Punjab Finance Minister Hashim Jawan Bakht has assigned the task to Bank of Punjab (BoP) President Zafar Masud to provide required assistance to the government of Punjab.

According to official documents available with The News, the BoP president on the instructions of the minister hired the consultancy services of a famous charted accountant firm. The document stated: “The Bank of Punjab has hired consultancy services of M/s KPMG Taseer Hadi for conducting a feasibility study to establish the insurance company.” The document stated that after analyzing the performance of the insurance sector in Pakistan and assessing the feasibility for establishing a new public sector insurance company, the consultants are now in a position to give a productive briefing to the government of Punjab.

Following this correspondence between the BoP and the finance minister, a meeting on the issue was held recently, which continued for almost four hours. Earlier, in initial meetings, only idea was floated and basic needs and objectives were discussed. Officials said the finance minister chaired the meeting which was attended by Zafar Masud, Secretary Finance Abdullah Sumbal, Additional Finance Secretary Numan Yousaf and officials of the KPMG. The KPMG briefed the meeting about the structure of existing insurance companies and the public sector insurance company. Further, the chartered accountant firm representatives pointed out the areas where the private sector insurance companies are lacking in service delivery and untapped areas which could be covered by the proposed Punjab Insurance Company.

Further, the officials in their presentations highlighted the advantages of creating an insurance company by the Punjab government. The annual spending on account of insurance premiums paid by the Punjab government on various assets was also highlighted. The officials attached to the development said it is likely that a BoP-type board of directors would be established for the Punjab Insurance Company. Government officials are also directors in the BoP Board along with private representatives.