Indian Insurance Industry Overview


For the economic development of the country, a growing insurance sector is always an important thing. The insurance sector offers the needful long-term funds related to the infrastructure development that strengthens the risk-taking ability of the country. Over the last few years, India has witnessed the rapid economic growth.

Talking about health and life insurance, both sectors carries their own importance. There is no doubt in saying that the constant changes in the environment, lifestyle and pollution is affecting a lot. Thus, securing every important aspect of our life is very crucial. Starting from health, we know that things are changing rapidly and so does the health and its related issues. The numbers of critical diseases are growing on a daily basis and to suffer from low-level diseases that require hospitalization and all has become a normal thing, but fighting against the same is very difficult because of inflation in health-care costs. To fight such inflation in health-care costs, all you need is an effective health insurance policy that offers wide coverage and can help you to deal with unwanted medical emergencies. With the help of an effective health insurance plan, you would be able to fight such medical emergencies and can get the quality treatment on time without paying a penny from your pocket. Thus, buying an effective health insurance plan is always a wise decision and it can also help you in tax saving under segment 80D

 Coming to life insurance, which is just not limited to providing the needful protection, but can also help you as an important too for financial planning and meeting one’s life’s goals. These goals can be related to your child’s education, wedding planning, purchasing home or car, retirement planning for self, etc. Also, make sure that post-retirement you have protected your wealth so that you may not lose what you gained during pre-retirement. Try and invest in equities to get high returns during early working life and as you move towards retirement age, transfer the holdings to debt ULIPs to safeguard the maturity corpus from any unfavourable market movements.

Health Insurance

Health Insurance is an insurance product that reimburses the costs you incur in the incident of hospitalization or domiciliary care. It may either reimburse payments or allow you to have a completely cashless hospitalization wherein your insurer will at once cope with the hospital– letting you focus on treatment and restoration.All individuals starting from  five years to eighty years can buy this insurance policy, however, age varies from one company to another.

Family cover – You can get the health policy for a family with the payment of one premium that is also known as master premium. This may additionally make you eligible for reductions in your premium, depending on your issuer of the family health plan.A majority of insurance companies offer health insurance policy that provide coverage to you in India and remote places, subject to certain predetermined situations. Under segment 80D you can avail tax benefits as well.

Life Insurance

The aim of life insurance is to provide financial safety to your family after your demise. Formerly buying a plan or policy look at your current financial status and standard of living, then choose a policy that best suits your pocket and requirements, but at the same time also choose a policy that will help keep your family stable for at least a couple of years.When applying for life insurance, you will be asked to mention a nominee or a beneficiary who will receive your proceeds. The benefit will be paid by the life insurer to your nominee. It is a best investment plan for your family’s future, and these are quite promising policies.

Market Size

 The government policy which stated the importance of insuring the uninsured people has pushed the insurance penetration. The number of lives covered under health insurance policies during 2015-16 was 36 crore, which is approximately 30 per cent of India's total population. The numbers have seen a rise in every subsequent year as 28.80 crore people had bought the policy in the last financial year.

During June 2016 to May 2017 period, the life insurance industry registered a new premium income of Rs 1.87 trillion (US$ 29.03 billion. The life insurance sector of Indiahas also reported 9 percent increase in the overall annual premium  which isequivalent in April-November 2016.

Market development in the Indian insurance industry

There a few things that the Indian insurance industry should consider to make sure about the seamless growth in the business. Some of such things consist of:-

·         Distribution channels:  It is very important for the success to have effective and cost efficient strategies, especially in the retail lines of business.

  • Focus on financial inclusion: The approach to insurance must be in sync with the evolving times. In India, the mission of the insurance industry should be to extend the insurance coverage over a larger part of the population.
  • Consumer needs: The growth of the insurance industry has been spurred by different distribution channel, coupled with targeted publicity and promotional campaigns by the insurance companies. Innovation has come not only in the form of advantages attached to the products, but also in the delivery mechanism through various marketing tie-ups. All these efforts have brought insurance closer to the customer as well as made it more relevant.

Road Ahead

 The future of the insurance industry looks promising with different changes in the regulatory framework that will lead to further change in the way the industry conducts its business. Demographic that includes growing middle class, young insurable population and growing awareness for protection and retirement planning will help a lot in the growth of Indian life insurance.

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