Rep. Lee Hyung-seok: "Small Businesses in Natural Disaster Blind Spots Should Receive Flood and Windstorm Insurance Benefits"

[Asia Economy Honam Reporting Headquarters, Reporter Yoon Jamin] Rep. Lee Hyung-seok (Democratic Party of Korea, Gwangju Buk-gu Eul) announced on the 16th that he has taken the lead in proposing the "Partial Amendment to the Flood and Windstorm Insurance Act," which includes small-scale enterprises, which suffer relatively large damages from natural disasters, as eligible for flood and windstorm insurance.

Recently, due to climate change caused by global warming, the frequency and intensity of natural disasters have increased. This year, the longest rainy season on record and sudden heavy rains caused severe human and material damage nationwide.

In particular, the material damage to small enterprises is estimated at 378.5 billion won, with an average damage amount of about 150 million won per small enterprise. This is 7.5 times higher than the average damage amount of about 20 million won per small business owner.

Accordingly, there is an urgent need to prepare support measures for small-scale enterprises, but the current law does not reflect this reality.

The current "Flood and Windstorm Insurance Act" limits the eligibility for flood and windstorm insurance, which supports practical damage recovery to help vulnerable businesses escape unemployment and threats to their livelihood in the event of a disaster, only to small business owners, excluding small enterprises.

Moreover, the average sales of small business owners and small enterprises are 209 million won and 336 million won, respectively, with only about 100 million won difference. Considering this, there are many criticisms that it is unreasonable for small enterprises to be excluded from the beneficiaries of the "Flood and Windstorm Insurance Act," placing them in a "blind spot."

Rep. Lee said, "It is necessary to contribute to the management and livelihood stability of small enterprises by explicitly including small enterprises' facilities as insured objects under flood and windstorm insurance so that damages caused by flood and windstorm to small enterprises can also be compensated."

He added, "There are concerns that natural disaster damages will increase rapidly due to climate change," emphasizing, "Not only small business owners but also small enterprises, for whom normal business recovery is difficult after natural disasters, should be eligible for flood and windstorm insurance."

Meanwhile, if one subscribes to flood and windstorm insurance, the government subsidizes half of the insurance premium, and compensation is provided for damages and flooding caused by typhoons, floods, heavy rains, strong winds, wind waves, tidal waves, heavy snow, earthquakes, and so on.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.