New Delhi:
A country wide survey by the Delhi based Max Life Insurance Company has found that seven in 10 people in India are interested in term plans with return on premium option.
“68% Indians or nearly 7 in every 10 individuals consider return on premium the most important benefit they’d like to have on their term plan,’’ said second edition of its flagship survey ‘Max Life India Protection Quotient’ 2.0 in association with KANTAR.
Accoding to the survey,fewer number of people preferred term products over endowment products in Tier II cities. Focusing on savings over protection, respondents in Tier II cities showed a higher percentage of endowment insurance awareness and ownership at 57 per cent and 30 pr cent respective.
Prashant Tripathy, Managing Director & CEO,” Sharp increase in awareness and ownership of life insurance and term insurance can be seen as a precursor to higher protection quotient in the years to come. The survey also gave the industry some deep insights for future such as the growing reception towards health apps in return for discounted premiums that young India is reflecting preference for, return of premium as the key feature, continued preference for human sellers and growing awareness about insufficiency of cover among other such findings. continued preference for human sellers and growing awareness about insufficiency of cover among other such findings.
At 66 per cent, flexible payment of cover was regarded as the second most important benefit, followed by life stage benefit and flexibility of premium payment, both of which were said to be important benefits as per 65% of the respondents. But most in Tier II cities prefer savings over protection products, said the survey.
Some of oter findingsof the survey are:
-While life insurance ownership for working women in Tier II cities stood at 60%, term insurance made merely 16% of that.When surveyed with regards to barriers in the way of term insurance purchase, 27% working women non-term owners in Tier II said that they never thought about term insurance at all and 20% said they don’t have enough money to buy it.
-Women, particularly in metros, focused more on returns than on long term financial protection. Critical illness occurrence realization among women also increased over the year, with 16% women realizing that they can fall prey to it as compared to 12% last year. Women also became more aware about critical illness treatment costs in comparison to last year.
-While online medium is the most preferred medium of information search for 33% millennials and 21% non-millennials, offline is the more dominant medium for 67% millennials and 79% non-millennials.Even within this group, the ratio of men to women who prefer between online and offline mediums of information is interesting to note. While 27% women searched online in comparison to 29% men.
-Despite increasing usage of internet and social media, Indians tend to prefer buying term insurance from agents rather than online with a notable 61% term buyers being nudged by agents first. While 37% of term buyers said they were aware of the product being cheaper online, 68% of them bought term plans from agents, indicating the affinity to face to face contact and human intervention in policy reassurance. While 76% of respondents bought term insurance via agents, 15% through banks and 9% online.
-57% Indians said that they would be happy to use health apps if it resulted in discounted premiums. One of the most important parameters recommended while selecting a life insurance provider is their claims paid ratio. However, the survey surprisingly found out that only 41% of the respondents across India considered an insurer’s claims paid ratio when selecting the life insurance company while purchasing a term plan. People across the country gave more importance to agents and brand goodwill while selecting a life insurance provider; reiterating the importance of owning a robust distribution network built on customer centricity and great brand recall.