Due to the spread of the pandemic, people are more focusing on their health insurance policies. According to the report on the study conducted by Facebook and Boston Consulting Group (BCG) point out that more than 45 percent of urban Indians are planning to increase their health insurance spending for the next six months owing to pandemic-induced risk realizations. Boston Consulting Group is an American based management consulting firm.
People increase their focus on health & immunity and near-term income concerns, which depicts the higher need for protection cover and investment options. So, the strongest sentiment towards customers is for Life and Health insurance. This study not only estimates the increase in demand for health insurance products over the upcoming months but also an increased influence over the digital modes for insurance purchases too.
As mentioned in the report, more than 60% of the insurance purchases have become digitally influenced, whereas 58% of the insurance agents are selling products and managing renewals through virtual modes. While moving into the terms of products more than 60% of the respondents found that “bite-sized” products are more useful.
The Managing Director and Partner of the Boston Consulting Group Mr. Vikash Jain said that “Even amid the income uncertainty, Insurance as a category has witnessed a positive spending sentiment due to the increased consumer focus on health, wellness, and safety” As per the study around 40-45% of consumers will get influenced by the digital modes while deciding to purchase insurance schemes from the urban and affluent segments. Before the spread of COVID-19, it was about 30%.
One of the senior executives from Facebook told that the top insurers such as ICICI Prudential, Bajaj Allianz, SBI Life, Kotak, Aditya Birla Health and aggregators like Policy bazaar have increased their social media footprint over the last three months based on the newfound trend in consumer demand for insurance to generate new leads and scale existing services.
Mr. Sandeep Bhushan, Director, and Head, Global Marketing Solutions, Facebook India, commented that the COVID-19 has disrupted the agent network’s ability to generate leads which they used to do using predominantly offline channels and added that, they are working with top insurance companies to start conversation-based customer acquisition using WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger platforms. Facebook has already tied up with certain banks for providing basic banking services on WhatsApp.
