Advertisement
Advertisement
China pollution
Get more with myNEWS
A personalised news feed of stories that matter to you
Learn more
Tourists wearing face masks to protect themselves from thick smog outisde the Great Hall of the People in Beijing earlier this month. Photo: EPA

Regulators order swift end to smog insurance sales

Watchdog instructs China's two largest insurers to cease offering policies against ill-effects of smog one week after they were launched, despite official 'war on pollution'

Regulators have told the China’s two largest insurers to stop selling coverage against smog, a week after such policies were launched, the reported on Thursday.

The newspaper did not say why the country’s insurance watchdog had ordered People’s Insurance Company of China (PICC) and Ping An Insurance Group to cease sales of the coverage.

The country’s worsening air quality is at the top of the list of concerns of party leaders, anxious to douse potential unrest as a more affluent urban population turns against a growth-at-all-costs economic model.

PICC last week offered coverage to Beijing residents against health risks caused by air pollution in the city, promising to pay 1,500 yuan (HK$1,891) to policy holders hospitalised by smog. It also said it would pay 300 yuan if the city’s official smog index exceeded the hazardous 300 level for five consecutive days.

Ping An had formed a partnership with an online travel agency to sell pollution insurance to travellers that allowed them to get compensation of up to 50 yuan per day if they spent at least two days in a smog-filled city.

Both firms said policies that had already been sold would be honoured, the reported.

Beijing’s official air quality index (AQI), which measures airborne pollutants including particulate matter and sulphur dioxide, routinely exceeds 300, and sometimes hits levels higher than 500.

The capital is on the frontline of a “war on pollution” that Premier Li Keqiang declared earlier this month in a major policy speech. Beijing is choked by traffic and surrounded by the big and heavily polluted industrial province of Hebei.

 

Post