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Not only are more people buying life insurance but the average premium and cover size has also increased, said Kshitij Jain, Managing Director and CEO, Exide Life Insurance, adding that despite the second wave of the Covid-19 pandemic, he expects the life insurance sector to do well this fiscal. “We are selling more policies than last year and we are selling bigger premiums. More people are taking bigger covers. Overall in premium term, industry will see growth this year,” Jain told BusinessLine in an interaction.
On an industry-wide basis, the average premium size has increased every year for the last three years, he said, attributing it to the attractive guarantee products that life insurers are offering. “Over the last three years at Exide Life Insurance, we have increased the average ticket size by as much as 40 per cent. My expectation is that this year, we will grow it by another 20 per cent,” Jain further said.
Upbeat about prospects
Jain is also upbeat about prospects for the life insurance industry this fiscal. “The growth will be a combination of two things. We see a clear trend of customers wanting to buy more protection that they used to. Also, over the last few months, a number of players including our company, are offering attractive long-term guarantees to customers,” he said, adding that the first five to six months of the fiscal will also benefit from the low base of 2020-21.
“Given the Covid-19 pandemic, we have recorded a rise in our protection business. Protection currently makes for close to 18 per cent of our customer acquisition. With increasing awareness about term insurance, we expect this number to go up further,” he further said.
Also read: Exide Life Insurance drops ambition of ‘breakneck’ growth in FY21: CEO
The company expects new business premiums to rise by about 30 per cent this fiscal. The life insurance industry is also well prepared to meet the rising claims due to Covid-19, he further said.
Till March 31, 2021, the company received close to 750 Covid-19 claims and has settled all of them. “Approximately 11.5 per cent of our total claims are on account of Covid-19 and we may witness further increase through the next few months if the pandemic intensifies across the country,” he said.
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