OIC secretary-general Suthiphon Thaveechaiyagarn said the increase in insurance claims was in line with records for daily new infections and emerging clusters.
He said the insurance industry has enough reserves to handle even the direst scenario, in which the pandemic and new variants are not controlled this year, with vaccines being successfully developed and distributed in 2022 and 2023.
Mr. Suthiphon added that the OIC has requested cooperation from non-life insurance companies by being cautious in making dividend payments this year.
At the end of March, the capital adequacy ratio (CAR) of the life insurance industry was 329%, similar to its 320% mark at the end of 2020. The CAR of non-life insurance was 320%, down from 324% at the end of last year.