Center

Insurance, bankcard ease farmers' financial woes

(China Daily)
Updated: 2006-10-04 08:35

Gong Yisheng, CIRC's director, said the threshold for insurers' entry into rural areas will be even higher than for cities, due to the fragility of the market.

For instance, the insurers should have local outlets to tend to rural residents' needs, and they will not be allowed to flee the market at will.

"All these measures aim to maintain a good environment for insurance development in rural areas," Gong added.

Currently, accident and health insurance are the best sellers in the countryside, but products tailored to farmers are in short supply, especially regarding pensions.

"We want to buy a policy out of concern for our pensions, but it is too expensive," said Chai Cuihua, a 45-year-old farmer who spends 1,900 yuan (US$238) on health insurance every year.

Zhou Fuping, a CIRC researcher, said comparatively high premiums, inflexible payment terms and incomprehensible policy clauses are the major problems in rural insurance.

"Most insurers made little or even no changes to policies in rural areas," he said.

"We have noticed that and has set up a team to develop farmer-tailored products," China Life Assistant President Su Hengxuan told China Daily.

Bankcards for the mobile

It sounded like a foolish question, especially spoken so loudly in a crowded railway station: "Who will dare to steal the 8,000 yuan (US$986) I have with me?"

The answer is a deafening silence. The speaker is Sha Gen, a migrant worker, in his late teens or early 20s, wearing a dowdy gray jacket and still sporting a childlike look.

"See, Sister Wang? Nobody will steal my money," said Sha, who has spent several years working in the city and now plans to go back to his hometown with his savings.

This is a scene from the Chinese film "A World Without Thieves," based on a story between two groups of thieves and a naive farmer-turned-worker.

Although the story is fictional, young Sha Gen represents thousands of Chinese farmers who work in cities and take the money they've earned back to their hometowns during Spring Festival.

Migrant workers about 100 million across China with the number growing by 4 million to 5 million each year carry the money they earn with them even at the risk that it will be stolen on the journey home. They could put the money about 50 billion yuan (US$6.25 billion) to 400 billion yuan (US$50 billion) combined in banks and send wire transfers home, but they dislike the transmission charges.