Nepal: Insurance sector looks to India for actuarial expertise
Source: Asia Insurance Review | Aug 2019
Nepal is dependent on India for actuarial services because of the lack of talent in this field in the Himalayan country. This reliance has meant an annual outflow of around NPR80m ($730,000) from Nepal.
One reason for the lack of actuarial expertise in the country is the absence of training in actuarial science, according to a report in Khabarhub.
Maha Lakshmi Insurance chief executive Rameshwor Shrestha said Nepal has not yet worked on setting up institutes and departments in universities to teach actuarial science.
Furthermore, the few actuaries who are Nepalese prefer to work in other countries where their remuneration is much higher that what they would earn in Nepal.
One downside of Nepal’s contracting Indian actuaries is that these experts, because of their own professional commitments, have sometimes failed to meet deadlines. As a result, some new insurance products do not get launched in the Nepalese market as scheduled. The dearth of actuaries in Nepal has also led to insurance companies copying the products of their rivals.
Each insurance company spends NPR1.5-2m in a year to Indian actuaries for their services. Based on this estimation around NPR80m in total exits Nepal every year to pay Indian actuaries. A