Women bought 32% of life insurance policies in 2017-18, shows IRDA data

Women bought 32% of life insurance policies in 2017-18, shows IRDA data

News

According to the latest annual report by the Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority of India (IRDAI), women bought 32% of the total individual life insurance policies sold in India in 2017-18.

Important Facts

1. The total number of individual life insurance policies issued in 2017-18 was 28.2 million, of which about 9 million were bought by women and 19.1 million by men.
2. The policies included insurance products like term insurance, traditional plans as well as unit-linked insurance plans or Ulips.
3. Lakshadweep, Puduchery, Kerala, Mizoram and Sikkim are the top 5 states/UTs with highest share of life insurance policies bought by women.
4. IRDAI data is in contrary to ILO data as ILO suggests that participation of women in the Indian workforce declined to 27.21% in 2017from the peak of 36.78% in 2005.

Reasons for increase:

1. As the participation of women in formal sector increases, it is also getting reflected in the number of policies that they are buying.
2. Often working men in the family buy investment-linked insurance policies in the name of non-working members, including women.

Suggestions

• As more women are buying life insurance policies, it is important for them to do proper risk analysis and insure themselves adequately instead of looking at insurance from the lens of investment and tax saving only.