Girija Subramanian, CMD, New India Assurance
“Lack of awareness regarding insurance and availability of customised products for women in this space can be taken care of by engaging women in marketing and distribution of products customised to meet the needs of these women,” says Girija Subramanian, CMD, New India Assurance
Women make up about 14 per cent of entrepreneurs and own a significant share of micro, small, and medium enterprises (MSMEs) contributing to 17 per cent in Indian GDP
Mumbai: Celebrating International Women’s day, New India Assurance(NIA), the country’s largest general insurance multinational, has unveiled a new affordable cover, New India Mahila Udyam Bima, for growing number of women entrepreneurs on Saturday.
Starting with a low premium of Rs 226(excluding GST) for a Rs 1 lakh cover, the maximum sum assured for the product can be Rs 5 crore and covers Fire and allied perils, Loss of Profit, Burglary, Personal Accident, Public Liability, Personal Accident of Employees and Employee Compensation.
NIA is offering a discount upto 20 per cent of the premium as per the underwriter assessment of risk and additional discount of 2,5 per cent on the base premium if the business unit uses renewable power resources. Besides, the policy has features like no minimum sum insured, hassle free settlement with minimum documents.
Commenting on NIA’s focus on providing various covers to women, Girija Subramanian, CMD, NIA, said,“ Women are entering the financial ecosystem across urban and rural economies and their efforts need to be encouraged by way of protection. Also with the government encouraging financial inclusion for women to enable them become financially independent , there is a need to have protection products catering to their unique needs for risk management and also make them aware of the same.”
Lack of awareness regarding insurance and availability of customised products for women in this space can be taken care of by engaging women in marketing and distribution of products customised to meet the needs of these women, emphasied Subramanian.
“As women contribute to a large extent in rural businesses, a predominantly women based door to door distribution model would help garner maximum reach for such products,” added Subramanian..
Apart from having a Surrogacy cover , NIA has already products like Asha Kiran and currently is in the process of developing more exclusive products for women. Woman employees in all cadres of the company together form 30 per cent of its total employee strength.
NIA has a women agency force of 25,493 out of its total 1,18,500 agents.
Women’s contribution to India’s GDP is just 17 per cent, less than half the global average. And India ranks 57th out of 65 countries for women’s entrepreneurship, according to the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor Report 2021.
Further, women make up about 14 per cent of entrepreneurs and own a significant share of micro, small, and medium enterprises (MSMEs). They contribute notably to industrial output and employ a substantial portion of the workforce, according to the 2023 State of India’s Livelihoods Report.
Most MSMEs in India are microenterprises, with many women-owned businesses being single-person ventures, according to Niti Aayog, a government think-tank.
While some women-owned enterprises employ staff in big numbers, a large majority operate with very few workers.
Revealing more women in India are seeking credit in the Indian economy, NITI Aayog, in its latest report last week, had mentioned that as of December 2024, 27 million women were monitoring their credit scores , marking a 42 per cent increase from the previous year, signaling growing financial awareness among the community.
With rising credit awareness and improved scores, financial institutions have the opportunity to offer gender-smart financial products tailored to women’s unique needs, suggested the report..
Since 2019, women’s share in business loan origination has increased by 14 per cent and their share in gold loans has grown by 6 per cent, with women accounting for 35 per cent of business borrowers by December 2024.
However, challenges such as credit aversion, poor banking experiences, barriers to credit readiness and issues with collateral and guarantors persist and the role of financial institutions in designing inclusive products tailored to women’s needs, along with policy initiatives that address structural barriers, will be instrumental in accelerating this momentum, said the report.
According to the Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority’s annual report 2023, of the total policies sold, the number of policies issued to women was around 9.73 million, which is 34.20 per cent of the total.
Of the total 28.4 million policies sold by the insurers during 2022-23, the share of women’s life insured by private companies rose to 30.13 per cent as compared to 29 per cent in 2021-22. On the other hand, the share of women insured by Life Insurance Corporation of India (LIC) dropped to 35.81 per cent from 36 per cent in the year-ago period.
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