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The
Government Service Insurance System (GSIS) has just
assumed leadership of the P3.5-billion Compulsory
Third-Party Liability (CTPL) insurance business in the
country. Yes, folks, it’s a done deal, a fait accompli.
You can
be sure that those who would continue to vociferously
protest this turn of events are the ones who have never
had it so good under the old graft-ridden system. It’s
really a small group that is behind the cornering of a
huge chunk of the CTPL business in all the Land
Transportation Office (LTO) offices, to the exclusion of
the legitimate non-life insurance companies.
According to Winston Garcia, a cartel of fly-by-night
insurance companies has been “manipulating” and
misleading the Philippine Insurers and Reinsurers
Association (Pira). The Pira is the same group that has
been vigorously objecting to the initiatives of the GSIS
to restore sanity in the CTPL insurance business.
But now,
it’s all academic. The LTO and the industry itself have
decided to work with the GSIS on this undertaking to put
an end to all the shenanigans that have stained the LTO
and the country’s legitimate insurance firms.
As we
speak, the leading role to be assumed by the government
pension fund is now being institutionalized by the LTO.
Under Transportation Assistant Secretary Alberto
Suansing, the LTO has been striving to cleanse the
agency’s operations. The GSIS-inspired system of
integrating the issuance of CTPL insurance to vehicle
owners is the very thing the LTO needs from Alberto’s
perspective. He publicly said so just the other day,
during a joint press conference called by the GSIS and
the LTO.
Suansing
assured the public that the new system, apart from
substantially reducing the cost of CTPL insurance, would
provide fool-proof protection against fake coverage.
This means all the insurance fixers at the LTO are out
of business.
Garcia,
for his part, assured the non-life insurance industry
that the GSIS intended to take only 20 percent of the
CTPL business and not “monopolize” it, as charged by the
Pira in many of its newspaper ads.
“The
GSIS will accredit legitimate and reputable insurance
and reinsurance companies wanting to participate in the
new scheme,” he said. He ticked off the names of more
than 30 insurance companies that have signified their
intention to participate in the new program.
Garcia
also pooh-poohed the misleading claims made by “certain
members” of the Pira that the entry of the GSIS into the
picture would mean the dislocation of 60,000 employees
in the insurance industry. “How can this happen?” he
asked. The GSIS is going into the new scheme in
partnership with other legitimate insurance firms, and
absolutely not to hog the market.
The fact
that both the LTO and the non-life insurance industry
are going along with Winston on this scheme means only
one thing—the end of a multibillion-peso racket that has
flourished all these years. It was a racket that enabled
a small group of fly-by-night firms with no capability
to service claims to sell fake policies, yet corner 75
percent of a P3.5-billion market.
To
motorists like myself who have to deal with the LTO
every so often, this is most certainly a welcome
development.
Apart
from paying much less than we used to, we can now be
sure the insurance coverage we paid for is the real
thing.
If you
think Garcia and Suansing deserve a salute, honk your
horn twice.
Omerta_bdc@yahoo.com |
