Max Life Insurance Company Ltd (Max Life), a private life insurer, has come up with a ‘Covid-19 One-Year Term Rider’ to help customers (18 to 65 years) looking to protect themselves against the pandemic.

This is the life insurance industry’s first rider for Covid-19 and offers both diagnostics benefit (fixed lump sum of 20 per cent of rider sum assured) and also death cover due to Covid-19 (100 per cent of sum assured), V Viswanand, Deputy Managing Director, Max Life, told BusinessLine .

The newly launched rider, which comes with an annualised premium of ₹320 ( including GST) for a sum assured of ₹ 1 lakh, can be attached to 12 of Max Life’s existing products ranging from term plans, savings and income plans to retirement plans.

“For diagnosis we have kept it very simple. We look for Covid-19 report from authorised laboratories. No medical bills are required or no home quarantine proofs. Lump sum is provided upfront on diagnosis. This rider will not cover Covid-19 incident in the first 15 days, and will be valid for a period of one year,” he said.

Survey conducted

Viswanand said that Max Life had, in June/July, in association with KANTAR, conducted a survey (India Protection Quotient -Express), and the findings prompted the launch of this rider. As many as 41 per cent of the respondents said they would purchase term plans due to an increase in the spread of Covid-19. Additionally, the survey also highlighted that when confronted by the thought that Covid could prey on the individual and/or family, 31 per cent of the respondents in metros and 20 per cent in Tier 1 cities said they bought a life insurance with Covid-19/ critical illness rider.

Keeping these insights in mind, the Covid-19 rider by Max Life seeks to help customers protect their financial future by enabling them to continue investing in life goals, while also protecting their immediate future by attaching the one-year rider to their base plan, he said.

On the business performance of Max Life during the first quarter this fiscal, Viswanand said that the market share of the company in the private sector improved to 11 per cent with ₹660 crore of annualised premium equivalent.

“Growth came from our proprietary channel. While agency channel saw 5 per cent growth, e-commerce saw 31 per cent growth year-on-year. The demand for pure terms plans and protection fuelled the performance. While the private sector witnessed 23 per cent degrowth, we saw 4 per cent degrowth in new business premium in Q1. Our degrowth was marginal when compared to the entire private sector,” he said.

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