New Database Will Help Clear Insurance Mess for Israelis

There are about 8 million people in Israel, but they own more than 30 million insurance policies – and that number increases each year. According to Finance Ministry studies, many people own multiple policies for the same purpose – and in order to cut down on waste and enable consumers to save money, the Ministry will be instituting an accessible database where each policyholder can look up their current insurance footprint – and decide which, if any, policies they don’t need.

In 2015, Israelis spent NIS 35 billion on life insurance, NIS 18 billion on general insurance products, and NIS 10 billion on health insurance. Altogether, NIS 63 billion was spent on insurance policies of all types – an inordinately high amount, believes Finance Minister Moshe Kachlon.

Some 10 percent of the complaints handled each year by government officials surrounded duplicate policies that customers were pressured to buy and found difficult to cancel, the Ministry statistics said. The problem is especially acute in the home mortgage insurance market, where tens of thousands are believed to have multiple policies protecting the the same asset.

The database will enable consumers to see exactly which products they own, and provide much needed transparency in the insurance market. “Transparency and competition go hand in hand. The new project will end the absurd situation in which people pay for the same insurance multiple times without knowing it, and thus help save consumers money,” Kachlon said.