Insurance sahi hai? Mega awareness campaign may release in October

Akin to the ‘mutual funds sahi hai’ campaign, the life insurance industry is ready with its awareness campaign on buying a policy. Slated to release in October 2019, the campaign will look at busting myths related to the sector and importance of buying insurance. Sources told Moneycontrol that the Life Insurance Council (industry body of life insurers) in its general body meeting on September 27 will finalise the date for the campaign. This is expected to be a mass campaign across all channels, including TV, digital and outdoor.

Slated as one of the most expensive awareness campaigns in the industry with a budget of Rs 100 crore, it will look at making insurance a pull product in the country. It is expected that Life Insurance Corporation of India (LIC) will contribute a majority portion to this kitty. The Council will raise an invoice and consequently start collecting the funds for the campaign. Sources also said the Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority of India (IRDAI)'s contribution will also be sought at a later stage.

Why a campaign

Insurance has been considered a push product in the country. Due to this, it is not a very popular product and is bought primarily for tax saving purposes. In FY18, insurance penetration stood at 3.69 percent in India. In Asia, it was at 5.62 percent with Taiwan topping the list at 21.32 percent. India ranked 41st globally with Taiwan, Cayman Islands and Hong Kong being the top three in the world.

Similarly, the premium per person or insurance density stood at $73 in India for FY18 while it was $850 globally. Among its Asian peers where the average was $360, Hong Kong topped the list at $8,313 which was the second-highest globally. The Cayman Islands topped the list with a density of $12,122 in 2017.

IRDAI has experimented with radio campaigns earlier. In February 2017, IRDAI had launched an insurance awareness campaign, in the form of radio jingles, for a period of six months.

The AMFI campaign

The insurance industry is taking lessons from the Association of Mutual Funds in India (AMFI) that had in March 2017 launched the investor awareness campaign called 'mutual funds sahi hai' (mutual funds are the right choice). AMFI had also said the campaign had led to an addition of 3.2 million investors between March 2017 and April 2018.

The industry association of the mutual funds (MF) industry, AMFI, had launched the campaign to promote MF as a preferred option for investors. This was funded by the MF industry and it was among the first in the history of the financial services industry where all the sector companies had come forward to promote the product.

Source: Money Control