New Delhi has showed maximum awareness about health and home insurance, registers rising buying trends. About 93 per cent customers buy health insurance to cover hospitalisation expenses, while 48 per cent want to cover their families.
The survey said that buyers prefer health insurance cover for diseases like cancer, diabetes & pregnancy. According to the survey, salaried people drive health insurance market, the volume is picking up as more people from 25 years to 45 years are seen buying health insurance.
Insurance advisors from Mumbai, New Delhi, Bangalore, Kochi, Ahmedabad and Coimbatore participated in the survey. The survey was conducted as part of the insurer's intermediary engagement initiative called 'Flames of Liberty'. The advisors who participated in the survey revealed that the trend of buying health and home insurance policies has been seen the highest in New Delhi, followed by Mumbai.
More than 63 per cent of general insurance advisors surveyed claimed that in New Delhi, more than 50 per cent customers they interacted with were aware about the importance of health insurance and the same was 48 per cent in Mumbai. Other cities viz. Bangalore and Kochi showed lesser awareness about health insurance.
New Delhi also showed maximum awareness for home insurance with more than 50 per cent customers preferred to have home insurance in their portfolio. Incidentally, the customers in Mumbai did not show much awareness about home insurance, while Bangalore ranked second after New Delhi in the home insurance segment.
In the health insurance category, it was observed that the preference for the whole family coverage was higher than the individual policies. Further, not too many people were pre-decided about the brand or the policy they had planned to go with. While securing the hospitalization expenses was the main reason to buy the health insurance, protecting the home from any threat of theft was the reason for buying the home insurance.
With respect to health, cancer, diabetes and pregnancy are preferred to be covered. Here, cancer cover was looked by 66 per cent and 63 per cent of the customers in Bangalore and Delhi respectively (highest) against only 26 per cent in Mumbai.
Diabetes cover was also looked by 74 per cent of Delhi customers against 44 per cent of Mumbai customers. Pregnancy cover was looked by 86 per cent and 83 per cent of customers of Delhi and Bangalore respectively against only 25 per cent in Kochi and 54 per cent in Mumbai.
Also, the survey showed that buyers prefer transparency and show no tendency to hide ailments or pre-disease histories. Further, it was seen that cashless treatment benefits and network of hospitals are crucial deciding factors for health insurance purchase.With respect to capping on room rent, it was found to be 88 per cent in Delhi, which was highest among the cities.
In home insurance, fear of theft is the key driver. About 89 per cent of the customers were found choosing a home insurance due the fear of theft/burglary & fire/ gas leakages. Fire/gas leakages was quoted by all advisors of Delhi and Mumbai.
Theft as a reason to choose home insurance was quoted by 100 per cent advisors in Delhi against only 89 per cent and 83 per cent of advisors in Mumbai and Kochi respectively. Also, 33 per cent of the advisors ranked Theft/Burglary number 1 followed by Fire/ gas Leakages (26 per cent).
