With the COVID-19 pandemic bringing the importance of health and financial stability to the fore, consumers in Karnataka are investing more in term and health insurance policies, a study by Policybazaar has shown. The sale of term insurance policies specific to Karnataka region went up by 54% in April and by 32% between April-September. In terms of health insurance bought, the state witnessed a growth of 92% year-on-year and 25% on an average from April-September.
A spike in buying behaviour has been clearly pronounced for term life insurance, with nearly 64% of the customers buying term policies with a cover of Rs 1 crore and above during the period of April-September 2020.
“Sudden uncertainty at any point of time may leave your family in a huge trouble if you do not have a safety net in place. Term insurance does not only help your beneficiary when you are not around but also protects you against the accidental un-stabilities. COVID has increased insurance awareness and consumers are keen to protect their families for the unpredicted times,” the company said in a statement.
For a 30-year old individual buying term insurance with Rs 1 crore sum assured and for a cover up to 70 years, the premium comes around Rs 1,000 per month.
As per data, the age group of 42-50 years witnessed highest increase in term insurance buying, followed by the age group 31-40.
Santosh Agarwal, CBO-Life Insurance, Policybazaar.com, said “We have introduced various kinds of income surrogates, such as Credit Card limits, monthly SIP for mutual funds, bank statement for saving account in individual name and property loan statement, to ease out the process of arranging income documents which replicates their true capacity to take adequate sum assured. We have also tied up with bureaus like CIBIL, CRIF, and Experian Verifying the profiles & documents.
Interestingly, a Kotak Insurance report on Wednesday saw that the life insurance market too is bouncing back, after seeing a decline over April-August 2020. Gradual revival in ULIPs, increase in sales through agency channel and strong traction in non-par savings segments are likely drivers, it said.