Priyadarshini Ganesan

Insurance companies should align their sales practices to generate the best outcomes for low income households by ensuring easy access to a variety of products with disclosures that provide accurate information.

This blog post summarises key takeaways from a virtual workshop we recently hosted. It was conducted against the backdrop of a study that we recently concluded titled “Can information disclosures influence life insurance purchase decisions for low-income households?”.

Unlike term plans that provide life risk cover or unit-linked schemes, where returns are market-linked, endowment plans offer maturity benefits upon survival & minimum guaranteed return.

Life insurance is an important financial tool that allows households to manage financial risks arising from the death of an earning member.

There are several reasons for low take-up of life insurance policies in general and specifically low take-up of term life insurance. These factors range from supply side barriers such as misaligned incentive structures for agents selling life insurance policies, lack of availability and accessibility to a larger suite of life insurance products customized to the needs of low-income households to demand-side barriers such as household’s contextual factors that limit their awareness and priority for a life insurance product and their behavioural preferences pertaining to life insurance products.

In this study, we conduct a quantitative analysis of household finance data to understand the status of health insurance ownership in India, identify the determinants of health insurance ownership, and understand the relationship between households’ access to health insurance and their health expenditure.

The Microfinance sector is gearing up for change as the recent RBI (Regulatory Framework for Microfinance Loans) Directions, 2022 has put in place comprehensive regulations to ensure customer protection

India needs to carefully assess its capacity, need and social context while choosing its own path towards not just greater agricultural productivity and better farmer welfare but also ecological sustainability.

It is an important tool for agrarian families to manage and mitigate their risks

he microfinance movement in India is set to receive another dose of impetus with the Reserve Bank of India’s (RBI) recently released Consultative Document on Regulation of Microfinance in June 2021. Following the Malegam Committee Report, which is a decade old now, the current document looks to reassess and realign the priorities of the sector.