DAVAO CITY—The Government Service Insurance System (GSIS) has appealed to executives of local governments and national agencies to expand the insurance coverage of their buildings and other properties to include all damages that might be considered “force majeure.”
“It’s adding a little premium to the mandated fire insurance,” GSIS Davao Branch Manager Deity U. Manampan said.
This time, the government entities “should expand the coverage to include earthquakes, typhoons and other ‘acts of God,’” Manampan added.
He said the decision should be made before renewing their insurance “because this would require a budgetary support.”
On Monday, the GSIS handed a check amounting to P42.37 million to the regional office here of the Department of Health as settlement to the fire insurance claim when a fire hit some DOH structures on September 23, 2016.
DOH Regional Director Annabelle P. Yumang received the insurance check on February 3.
Vilma L. Fuentes, GSIS vice president for Mindanao, said the claim was one of two big insurance settlement claims this year made by GSIS in Mindanao on damaged government properties. The other one involved P20 million for a building in Cotabato City.
Fuentes said, however, that buildings that were damaged in the series of earthquakes last year were not covered by insurance.
Under Republic Act 656, government entities were mandated to insure their buildings and other properties. The mandated coverage was only related to fire.
“They need to insure their buildings for incidents related to acts of God,” she said.
Jason C. Teng, GSIS senior vice president for Visayas and Mindanao Group, said the expanded insurance coverage has been deemed important after Supertyphoon Yolanda (international code name Haiyan) devastated Southeast Asian nations, including the Philippines, in 2013.