COVID-19 Accelerates Insurance Awareness and Purchase in India: PB survey

There’s no doubt about the fact that Covid-19 pandemic has not only impacted public health but also the financial health of the people. It has taken a toll on the incomes and savings as businesses are shutting down, supply chains have disrupted and unemployment is on the rise.  

In such a situation, it’s important to understand the consumer sentiment towards finances, investments, and insurance and this is why Policybazaar recently conducted a survey. Around 15,000 people responded to the survey through our app and website. As per the findings of the survey, the primary concerns of people during the lockdown are health and financial security for families in the long term. 

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A whopping 65% of those surveyed consider their family’s health and that of their own as the main concern during these unprecedented times. Of these, 37% consider health as a concern and 28% consider long-term financial security for the family.

Overall awareness of insurance as a means to protect themselves against 3Ds of life- death, disease, and disability is on the rise. This can be attributed to the fact that around 51% of the respondents considered having an insurance cover important while nearly 80% said they were aware of the benefits of health insurance.

According to Policybazaar Group CEO and Co-Founder Yashish Dahiya, "There are three-four trends that have emerged in the last 10-12 years in the insurance industry. One is the consumer wanting to buy insurance so, its pull vs push. Covid-19 makes it far more extreme because the push element has reduced."  

The concerns about health and long-term financial security were reflected in the purchase transactions as well. The visits to bookings conversion rate on Policybazaar’s website for both health and term insurance has quadrupled in the last two months of 2020 vs same period, a year ago.

The overall trends clearly depict how consumer sentiment towards buying insurance has increased exponentially after the pandemic. They are now more aware of covering themselves adequately and buying insurance for the right reasons. 

"People want to buy health insurance and term insurance as a tool for protection against death, disease and disability. Third trend is digital fulfillment which is issuing insurance policies without the need of physical meeting, whether it's through self inspection, telemedicals," he added. 

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