 "Telenor India offers free life insurance cover to customers")
Telenor will offer life insurance for free to all active customers of the company. The company will work with Shriram Life Insurance and MicroEnsure to take the initiative to the masses.
By spending on regular recharges with a small incremental value, Telenor consumers will get the benefit of an life insurance cover, which will be a hundred times of the monthly recharge value and up to a maximum of Rs 50,000. It aims to contribute to the financial inclusion agenda of the government ensuring financial security for family members.
MicroEnsure will help in designing these mass-market insurance products and provide on-going operational support required to make a digital product work, according to the company.
Launching this initiative, Vivek Sood, CEO, Telenor India, said that currently in India, only 3.9% of the population has an insurance cover of any type. The primary reasons for the low penetration are issues like lack of awareness, cumbersome enrollment process, cost of insurance and lack of trust. Lack of distribution network has also restricted insurance products becoming popular and pervasive.
"This is an innovative product that will bridge the disparity in access to life insurance among the low and middle-income individuals.With the life insurance offer, Telenor will create a unique differentiation in financial services just like we have done with our affordable mobile service," Vivek Sood, CEO, said.
In August this year Telenor Group had got an in-principle approval from Reserve Bank of India to the joint application of Dilip Shanghvi Family & Associates (DSA) and IDFC to set up a payment bank in India. With this Telenor will be able to offer mobile banking solutions and extend the benefits of banking to the unbanked. Telenor is preparing to launch mobile banking services soon.