BATANGAS CITY?Passengers going to island provinces and the Visayas through the Batangas port have complained of additional insurance coverage imposed on them on top of the insurance already built-in in their transportation fare.

Erwin Villalobos, a staff member of the SuperCat ferry vessels, said their passengers are automatically insured once they have signed up on the passengers? manifest.

A passenger who requested not to be named said the teller at a booth informed her and her companions that a stub representing an insurance coverage was required and this would also serve as the terminal pass.

Another man, who didn?t want to have an insurance stub because he already has several insurance plans, was forced to get one because the teller said the stub was an additional insurance.

The Inquirer saw a sign in front of a booth?s door saying buying insurance ticket is voluntary but a teller was sitting in front of it, blocking the message.

The insurance coverage costs P15.

About 5,000 passengers use the Batangas port daily, Philippine Ports Authority (PPA) Batangas Port manager Alex Cruz said.

?That would mean at least P75,000 daily,? the Odiongan-bound passenger said.

Reacting to the complaints, Henric David, owner of Pacific Bay Insurance Agency located inside the Port of Batangas, said the P15 insurance coverage is a marketing strategy.

David said the P15 cost of the stub insures a passenger for P20,000, which covers death and permanent disability due to an accident that might arise in the port and in the ship until the passenger steps out from the pier gate of his destination.

?This covers all types of accidents,? David said.

Purchasing insurance ticket, David said, is voluntary. But the agency?s tellers would block passengers who already have a shipping ticket, sell the insurance ticket or stub and say that it is required.

He added that they insist having the ticket, especially the elder ones, because the passengers need insurance.

The tellers also said the insurance agency is under the PPA management and the collections would go to the PPA, which David and Cruz denied.

?That is wrong,? said David.

The only participation of PPA, he said, is that the agency rents the space on the PPA land. The booth/building belongs to the agency.

?I just cannot ask the insurance company to leave,? Cruz said without elaborating.

Cruz said the PPA allowed the shipping companies to field their employees and act as solicitors.

Solicitors are the ones who act as barkers at the port.

Cruz denied that the collection of the agency goes to PPA as claimed earlier by the tellers.

He said the only payment the PPA receives monthly from the agency is the rent on land space, which is renewable yearly, and nothing else.

Cruz said that sometime in 2008, he suspended the operations of Pacific Bay Insurance Agency for one to two weeks because it lacked certain requirements.

David, in return, filed charges against Cruz, which eventually ended up in an amicable settlement. Marrah Erika Lesaba, Inquirer Southern Luzon