Life Insurance sector in India: A decade of change
Life insurance industry has gone through various phases of change in India since its humble beginning in 1938 with the enactment of Insurance Act. After liberalization and privatization, there were drastic changes in the industry since the 2000. The entry of private and global players saw a drastic change in approach. New products were launched and so also the service and operations were boasted to cater to the increasing need of the customers. Apart from improvement in product variants and services, the cut throat competition also brought in misspelling where customers plunged into the purchase of unit linked policies with the promise of quick and higher returns. There is huge scope for growth in this industry since there still exists a very large number of uninsured population in India. In a country like India where the social security is not covered by the government, creating awareness for getting insured is focus of the government. Various policies and programmes have been introduced by the government for this purpose. The paper aims at highlighting the various changes this industry have gone through during the last decade with respect to the perception and buying behaviour of customers and also the various initiatives of the government to increase penetration levels to five per cent by 2020.