The new board of the Insurance and Private Pension Regulation and Supervision Agency (SEDDK) has set out its work plan.
The five-member board, appointed by a presidential decision published in the Official Gazette dated 7 July 2022, is led by Mr Mehmet Akif Eroglu as chairman.
This is the second board to be appointed since the SEDDK was established by a presidential decree dated 18 October 2019. The first board was appointed by a presidential decision published in the Official Gazette dated 24 May 2020 and held its first meeting on 5 June 2020.
At a media briefing in early September, Mr Eroglu outlined the importance of the insurance sector to the country’s economy and emphasised the sustainable growth of the sector, according to local media reports.
“We have formed working groups, whose members include the sector’s stakeholders, to develop structural solutions to the problems in the sector. Our aim is to take action quickly and comprehensively by creating an action plan,” he said.
Medium-term plan
Mr Eroglu pointed out that insurance and private pensions are stated as important to the national economy in the government’s Medium-Term Programme (MTP) covering the years 2023-2025.
Türkiye’s new MTP, which revised the country’s economic goals for the 2023-2025 period, was published in the Official Gazette on 4 September. It was drawn up jointly by the Ministry of Treasury and Finance and the Directorate of Strategy and Budget.
He said that insurance-related issues to be dealt with include the negative impact of climate change and the development of agriculture insurance to mitigate weather-related losses.
The SEDDK is also keen to promote product diversity to widen insurance coverage. Apart from developing the Private Pension System (BES) and the auto-enrolment pension scheme (OKS), the regulator is pushing the growth of Compulsory Catastrophe Insurance to protect homeowners against losses from natural disasters.
“In this context, we are working with insurers to develop practices that support the increase in product diversity in individual insurance and private pension branches in order to increase the insurance penetration rate and the number of participants,” Mr Eroglu said.
The SEDDK would share its insurance sector development plans in November, in which new areas will be highlighted, he added. M