Profile of Korea Trade Insurance Corporation - K-sure

Korea Trade Insurance Corporation (K-sure) was founded by the Korean government in 1992 to operate export and import insurance programs for the purpose of facilitating global trade.

The export insurance system is a policy tool that indemnifies losses suffered by exporters after the shipment of export goods/services and by financial institutions after providing export financing to exporters. As in the case of individuals who purchase non-life insurance to prepare for losses in property and life insurance or health insurance to prepare for bodily injuries or health problems in the future, exporters purchase export insurance in case they cannot recover export proceeds.

Broadly, export insurance covers ① the political risk such as war/revolution/rebellion, limitations imposed on importation and foreign currency exchange, declaration of moratorium, etc in importing countries, and ② the commercial risk such as non-recovery of export proceeds and in the case export itself being impossible due to importer's poor credit, bankruptcy, refusal to pay export proceeds, etc.

The import insurance system is a policy tool that facilitates financing for domestic importers and indemnifies losses arising when importers cannot receive shipment on time due to breach of contract by foreign exporters or cannot recover prepayment.

We covered 32% of the total exports of Korea in 2009, meeting demand from our clients ranging from domestic large and small/medium businesses to domestic as well as foreign financial institutions.

We provide export insurance to a diverse range of fields such as IT and consumer goods (semiconductors, cell phones, LCD TV, clothing, etc), capital goods (ships and plant construction), and knowledge and cultural contents goods (technology, software, movies, games, etc). The scope of coverage is also extended to investments and resource development projects abroad.

We saw early on that increasing exports by boosting corporate competitiveness has limits because Korea is heavily dependent on imports of raw materials and capital goods for manufacturing of export goods and for domestic usage. In other words, decreased imports of these materials and goods can negatively affect economic development and exports by decreasing facility investments and various industrial activities. Thus, we changed our name from "Korea Export Insurance Corporation" to "Korea Trade Insurance Corporation" to introduce the import insurance system to stably secure major resources, energy, basic commodities and facility goods needed for economic development and exports.

K-sure is growing to provide comprehensive financial support services related with overall trade; from covering the non-payment risk of export proceeds to helping exporters and importers to obtain financing needed at the time of procuring raw materials and from the time of manufacturing until export proceeds is recovered