Yemisi Izuora/Agency Report
By 2030, the annual women’s insurance market in India is estimated to be between Rs1.4 and 2.3 lakh crore.
This is approximately two to four times the estimated premium of Rs 65.5 thousand crore spent by women in 2013, according to a study by insurance and global asset management player AXA in partnership with Accenture and IFC.
The India chapter of the report titled ‘SheforShield: Insure Women to Better Protect All’, presented by Bharti AXA, is a first-of-its-kind study of the women’s insurance market in the emerging economies of Brazil, China, Colombia, India, Indonesia, Mexico, Morocco, Nigeria, Thailand, and Turkey.
The expected four fold growth is attributed to the improvement in socio economic climate, better earnings, increase in awareness, growth in entrepreneurship and increase in life expectancy as the key growth drivers for improved participation of women in insurance.
One of the important findings of the study is that the insurance industry has largely overlooked women as a key customer segment – despite significant growth potential in the market.
The observation is based on the analysis of the business opportunity the women’s market represents for insurers, identifying growth drivers and highlighting women’s evolving and growing protection needs.
Meanwhile, some of the concerns that the study threw up regarding the Indian insurance landscape is that women constitute only 20-30% of insurer’s portfolio.
It has been observed that women tend to rely on savings, rather than insurance in case of a health emergency as commercial insurance products continue to remain an expensive proposition despite increase in income.
Speaking on the occasion, Dipankar Saika, Senior Vice President Strategic Initiatives, Innovation and Marketing, Bharti
AXA GI said, “The women segment in India is extremely important for Bharti AXA General Insurance. While most of our offerings have aspects that benefit women in particular like critical illness cover, roadside assistance etc., this report shall help immensely in taking our endeavor to the next level.
We shall look at women specific products and increasing the number of women both in our agent sales force and company workforce.
In fact I firmly believe that the deep insights the report offers in terms of woman insurance issues and solutions shall guide not just us but the entire Indian General insurance industry in direction of serving women customers better.”