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Jiwasraya starts paying claims, but only to small number of policyholders
Most policyholders, particularly those who bought its JS Saving Plan, have to wait until Jiwasraya receives funds from the sales of its assets to get the payment.
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The office of state-owned insurance company PT Asuransi Jiwasraya in Jakarta. (Antara/Galih Pradipta)
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tate-owned insurer PT Asuransi Jiwasraya has begun the payment of its policyholders’ claims, which are estimated to reach Rp 16.7 trillion (about US$1 billion) in total.
However, in the first stage Jiwisraya will pay only claims of the company’s traditional policyholders, which total only about Rp 470 billion, while other policyholders, particularly those who bought its JS Saving Plan, have to wait until it receives funds from the sales of its assets.
Jiwasraya’s president director Hexana Tri Sasongko said in Jakarta on Tuesday that the insurance company, in the first stage, would pay claims to 15,000 traditional or conventional policyholders before the end of March.
He said that due to limited funds, the insurer was prioritizing payments to conventional life insurance policyholders that had been verified by an independent auditor. “For the first stage of the payment, the company will use the funds raised from the sales of its financial assets such as stocks,” he said during a teleconference with the media.
Hexana also said the company was committed to paying the claims of other policyholders once the claims had been verified. Jiwasraya is also in talks with the State-Owned Enterprises (SOEs) Ministry and the Financial Services Authority (OJK) to determine when the next payment will be made, he said.
In the meantime, the insurer is still negotiating on the sales of its assets to help it pay the claims, which have been in arrears for a long time as a result of the company’s financial problems caused by mismanagement.
Jiwasraya’s investment mismanagement was first revealed in 2018 when it failed to repay trillions of rupiah in policyholders' claims, primarily those who held the JS Saving Plan product issued back in 2013. As of February, the amount that the ailing insurer had to pay had increased to Rp 16.7 trillion from Rp 12.4 trillion in 2019.
