The Government Service Insurance System (GSIS) and the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) convened their first Joint Coordinating Committee (JCC) meeting to advance their technical cooperation project aimed at strengthening the financial resilience of public assets against natural disasters.
The meeting marks a milestone in the three-year project titled “Strengthening Financial Resilience of Public Assets to Natural Disasters by Improvement of Public Insurance,” which was launched in May 2024 following a November 2023 agreement.
“This joint effort is not just about protecting the future of government assets. With a robust insurance framework, this collaborative mission is a proactive approach in demonstrating the GSIS commitment to build a stronger and safer nation through sustainable infrastructure practices,” GSIS president and general-manager Jose Arnulfo Veloso said.
“Climate change makes disasters more frequent and severe. Old insurance models and archaic underwriting systems no longer serve our needs,” Veloso said.
The Philippines ranks highest on the World Risk Index for the third consecutive year in 2024, underscoring the urgency of the initiative. The country incurred about $23 billion (or about P1 trillion) in losses from natural disasters since 1990.
The technical cooperation project is designed to enhance GSIS’s underwriting capabilities, improve the capacity of its insurance group to calculate replacement costs and establish accurate insurance premium rates.
The initiative will focus on developing an effective information and education campaign (IEC) strategy to raise public awareness about the importance of insurance.
“There is a compelling need for us in the GSIS to harness advanced systems and innovative approaches. We are very happy and grateful to the Government of Japan and JICA for initiating this project. We believe that we can learn a lot from Japan’s best practices in public insurance and their ability to inculcate widespread consciousness towards insurance among the general public,” GSIS Core Business Sector executive vice president Jason Teng said.
The JCC meeting addresses key project components, including determining appropriate replacement costs for public assets, calculating risk-based premium rates, enhancing GSIS underwriting capacity and promoting public insurance services.