Flexible, Creative Approach Needed for Voluntary Social Insurance Development

As the COVID-19 pandemic has affected all aspects of economic and social life and significantly impacted voluntary social insurance development of the Vietnamese social insurance industry, Vietnam Social Security (VSS) has actively made efforts to overcome difficulties, carried out creative and appropriate communication and advocacy solutions, ensured the “dual goals” of effectively increasing voluntary social insurance participants and preventing COVID-19 pandemic contagion.

May 2021 is the second edition of the “universal social insurance development month” according to the Prime Minister's Decision 1676/QD-TTg approving comprehensive reform of contents, forms and methods of social insurance communication. The month is aimed to offer social insurance for all people; highlight communications on social insurance policies and laws; attract the attention of all people to social insurance policies, especially voluntary social insurance policies; inform and encourage people to buy social insurance to fulfill the goal of universal social insurance; educate, motivate and raise the sense of responsibility of employers of buying social insurance for their employees.

The COVID-19 pandemic continues to develop complicatedly, but the VSS has applied flexible solutions to actual developments to increase buyers of voluntary social insurance right from the beginning of the year. As a result, by the end of April 2021, voluntary social insurance policyholders reached 1.12 million, slightly lower than the end of 2020 due to COVID-19 pandemic impacts.

Some localities have well increased buyers of voluntary social insurance, including Nghe An (9,499 policyholders more than the end of 2020 and 34,471 policyholders more than a year ago), Thai Binh (4,547 policyholders and 16,623 policyholders, respectively), Phu Tho (3,679 policyholders and 17,575 policyholders, respectively), Thanh Hoa (2,655 policyholders and 30,676 policyholders, respectively), and Quang Nam (1,861 policyholders and 12,922 policyholders, respectively).

The “universal social insurance development month” themed “social insurance for all workers” is accelerated by the social security sector, aligned with traditional communication contents on position, role and humanity of the social insurance policy, particularly emphasized rights and benefits of voluntary social insurance policyholders, thus conveying many meaningful messages to the masses such as “Moving toward the goal of universal social insurance is to build a sustainable social security", "Participating in social insurance is an investment for the future"; “Social insurance helps you reduce financial difficulty when facing risks in life”; “Retirement and health insurance - Financial support in old age”; “Participating in social insurance is protecting the life of each family”. The target is farmers and workers in the informal sector.

To have practical activities in response to the month and achieve the target of developing social insurance policyholders and voluntary social insurance policyholders in particular in May and in 2021, apart from proposing better improvement for social insurance policies and laws, the VSS has carried out consistent solutions to develop policyholders: Strengthening the coordination of Party committees, authorities and the whole political system to promote the voluntary social insurance policy; specifying plans and objectives for each commune, ward and collection agency.

The VSS has reviewed, classified and detailed data on potential customer groups (by age, gender, occupation and income, among other factors) to make effective communication approaches; continued to diversify forms of communication like conferences, seminars, contests, consultations and dialogues, with a focus on target groups to the grassroots level; continued to train professional guidance, communicative skills for insurance agents; assigned specific weekly and monthly targets of voluntary social insurance policyholder development to each agent; and reviewed and terminated unsuccessful agents. In addition, it has concentrated on calling on the business community, benefactors, agencies and organizations to contribute, support, buy and present voluntary social insurance policies for people to achieve the sustainability of social security policy for all.

At a recent online conference on collection and development of social insurance and health insurance in May 2021, VSS Deputy General Director Tran Dinh Lieu requested insurance bodies to cooperate with postal and health services to use flexible, innovative measures right from the grassroots level; further play the advisory role in social insurance development, engage Party committees and local authorities, especially at the grassroots level, to increase policyholders. Given that the COVID-19 pandemic is prolonged and complicated, they must clearly know that they may face hardships frequently; further improve performance forecasts on a quarterly, yearly and three-year period basis; and define potential target groups for a reasonable and effective plan and approach.

Saying that communication is a prerequisite, Mr. Tran Dinh Lieu requested social insurance agencies of provinces and cities to work out communication scenarios for each target group, with specific communication content and forms suitable for each target group to increase voluntary social insurance policyholders.

 By Huong Thom, Vietnam Business Forum