Thailand's insurance regulator, the Office of Insurance Commission (OIC), is looking to build small- and medium-sized enterprise (SME) resilience in the country's Songkhla province, due to its diverse economic structure encompassing agriculture, industry, trade, services and tourism.
This diversity means that businesses in the province face varying risks depending on operations.
A special lecture given by OIC Secretary-General Chuchat Pramoonphol, at Songkhla province, aimed to enhance understanding of using insurance systems as a risk management tool for SMEs.
According to Mr Chuchat during the lecture, SMEs, which have limited capital and resources, may find that a single unexpected event can significantly impact their ability to continue operations. As such, he suggested entrepreneurs identify which business risks they can manage themselves, and which should be transferred to insurance.
This strategy would allow them to plan appropriately for potential damages, ensuring that if an incident occurs, the business has sufficient insurance coverage to mitigate the impact, recover and resume operations.
Risks in Songkhla province
In his lecture, Mr Chuchat mentioned that in Songkhla province in particular, risks from natural disasters such as floods and storms, damage to property and premises, accidents affecting employees, customers, or third parties and business interruption are all significant challenges.
These actual risks, he noted, translates to coverage including property insurance, fire or natural disaster insurance, third-party liability insurance, employee accident insurance and business interruption insurance.