PLA to purchase insurance for active servicemen

The General Logistics Department (GLD) of the Chinese People's Liberation Army (PLA) recently issued the Notice on the Unified Purchase of Traffic Accident Insurance for Active Servicemen, confirming that the PLA will uniformly purchase the traffic accident insurance from the China Life Insurance Company Ltd. for its active servicemen starting from January 1, 2013.

According to the notice, in case that the active servicemen get killed or disabled in traffic accidents when taking such civilian means of transportation as airplane, bus, train (including train of subway and light railway), ship and the like to travel on business or take vacations on home leaves according to the army regulations on vacations and home leaves, they will be given a one-time military traffic accident insurance compensation. The active servicemen's traffic insurance will be purchased uniformly by the PLA, and the required expenses will be included into the annual military budgets made by the Financial Department of the GLD.

After the implementation of this notice, the PLA will no longer reimburse the traffic accident insurance purchased by the servicemen themselves from commercial insurance companies. The servicemen will be responsible for such expenses and their compensation standards will be executed by the insurance companies in accordance with their own provisions.

In comparison to the previous practices that servicemen purchased insurance on their own and expenses were reimbursed later by their units, the PLA's uniform purchase of the traffic insurance for active servicemen will not only reduce the spending, but also improve the level of support, according to a person in charge from the Financial Department of the GLD.