Private insurers have 70 per cent of India’s motor insurance market: study news

Private insurers provide nearly 70 per cent of the motor insurance cover in India and almost 90 per cent of the insurance shoppers are looking for comprehensive policies, according to a study.
About 56 per cent of the total motor insurance demand is for comprehensive renewal, making it the most popular product, according to a study by online insurance aggregator InsuringIndia.com.

Top five states, which account for 30 per cent of the nation’s population make up for almost 60 per cent of the term life insurance market in India and the average national term insurance cover across all five regions is Rs46 lakh, according to the study.

There is no great difference in term insurance demand between town and big cities and is equally distributed. The average term insurance seeker starts at 31 years and one out of every two insurance shoppers is aged between 30 and 39 years, the study says.

The maximum number of online term insurance shoppers (9 out of 10) spans the 20 to 49 years age group and every alternate customer is looking for a policy period of 25 years or more, the study found.

Females are highly underinsured with only 4 per cent of the total term insurance sample while 10 per cent of online term insurance shoppers are smokers.

A third of the likely customers looking at health insurance policy alternatives on the web sites are from smaller towns with less than a million population and the average age of online health insurance shopper is 39.9 years.

The average health insurance cover that most visitors look for is in the Rs3.5 lakh to Rs4.5 lakh range, according to the study.

One out of every three visitors is from smaller towns with less than a million population, which incidentally have the maximum internet density, even better than top 8 metros, according to the study.

More than 50 per cent of the population is looking for a cover size between R3.5 lakh and Rs4.5 lakh and the average national online health insurance cover is Rs4.2 lakh, the study says.

Also, according to the study, health shoppers in smaller cities are demanding bigger cover sizes compared to similar persons in big metros and nearly 80 per cent from small towns are looking for family cover.

The middle aged population (30 to 49 years) accounts for 2 out of 3 online health insurance visitors and 2 out of every 5 people looking for health insurance are aged between 30 to 39 years, the study noted.

The study also found increasing acceptance of online insurance shopping in India as is the case of online retailing.