Tag: Life insurance

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.

At least 988 million Indians–more than the population of Europe and 75% of all Indians–are not covered by any form of life insurance, and an Indian is assured of only 8% of what may be required to protect a family from financial shock following the death of an earning member, according to our analysis of government data and industry data.