Emerging Trends Post Covid Era

Embracing technology has enabled everything - from selling insurance policies to verification to claim settlement - in real time

- Nirmala Konjengbam

Year 2020 will be remembered for one big thing - bringing everything to a screeching halt - be it health or economy. September 28, 2020 saw India with over 60 lakh COVID cases and about a lakh dead. While majority is recovering from the virus, fresh cases to the tune of 80,000 to 90,000 every day is indeed a thing to worry. Life, like time and tide, waits for none and it is back on track despite the virus spreading like a wildfire.

Being a health crisis it has managed to wake the insurance sector up with a jolt witnessing a massive surge in the number of claims for COVID-19 treatment. According to ICICI Securities, just health insurers could end up receiving COVID-19-related claims worth more than ₹10,000 crore in 2020. A recent survey by Max Bupa, shows 71 per cent of the people are considering health insurance as a “necessity” as against 10 per cent, before the pandemic.

The pandemic has led to a rapid surge in demand for life, non-life and term insurance. Where there is no certainty of life, people are opting for term insurance to protect near and dear ones.

A data collated by insurance aggregator Policybazaar.com reveals more people going for term insurance with a cover of ₹1 crore or more to protect their families financially.

The report says, “Calculating data for those who bought ₹1 crore term cover, we found out that 50 per cent of the customers bought during April to August 2020. This reflects how people are investing in higher cover policies that are available at very affordable prices of around ₹1,000 per month only.”