A village in Hadong, South Gyeongsang Province, is submerged by overflow from the Seomjin River on Aug. 8, 2020, due to two days of torrential rain. (Yonhap)
SEOUL, April 5 (Korea Bizwire) — The Ministry of the Interior and Safety said Monday it will subsidize the full cost of storm and flood insurance for some low-income households, thanks to a revision of the Storm and Flood Insurance Act.
Storm and flood insurance refers to an insurance product that offers compensation for damages and inundation caused by nine types of natural disasters, including typhoons, heavy rain and floods.
The central and municipal governments subsidize up to 70 percent of the insurance cost, but low-income groups can have their costs covered up to 92 percent depending on the circumstances of municipal governments.
The facilities that can be covered by this insurance product include residential houses, agriculture/forestry greenhouses and commercial buildings and factories operated by small merchants.
The insurance can be applied for not only by facility owners but also facility tenants.
The beneficiaries of the national basic livelihood security plan and near poverty families can have up to 100 percent of the insurance cost subsidized, as long as they have a history of receiving emergency disaster relief for damages caused by natural disasters or have received subsidies for storm and flood insurance in the past.
In addition, the revised enforcement ordinance makes it mandatory for the government to pay the difference via an emergency disaster relief fund when the amount of insurance money received is less than the amount of the emergency disaster relief fund by adjusting the payment standard upward.
M. H. Lee (mhlee@koreabizwire.com)
