Misha Sharma

Policymakers should go beyond economics to look at sociological and anthropological aspects of how women negotiate finance.

There is consensus about the importance of financial inclusion. This has translated into efforts to increase the level of financial access from the financial sector firms as well as through policy initiatives. Among the financial sector initiatives, the most visible has been the growth of the FinTech platforms.

In this deck, we discuss some factors influencing life insurance take-up, the problem with endowment life insurance for the low-income segment, and how better disclosures could be the first step in helping households choose the right insurance product for them.

Advancing women’s financial inclusion is a key policy objective for both advanced and emerging economies. Providing access to formal finance is seen as an important lever in helping poor women seize economic opportunities and build a resilient future for themselves and their families.

This research brief aims to synthesize existing evidence on the performance of PMJJBY and PMSBY since their inception, the reasons for low participation in these schemes, and the barriers to their successful implementation.

This blog post summarises key takeaways from a virtual workshop we recently hosted. It was conducted against the backdrop of a study that we recently concluded titled “Can information disclosures influence life insurance purchase decisions for low-income households?”.

There is a need for updated dataset on households' consumption patterns, increased frequency of surveys on households’ balance sheet, and to collect data on financial well-being.

Despite significant policy support for financial inclusion, there is little evidence about what has been achieved by way of knowing which households and individuals are financially included, or what is the impact of such inclusion on these persons.

There are several reasons for low take-up of life insurance policies in general and specifically low take-up of term life insurance. These factors range from supply side barriers such as misaligned incentive structures for agents selling life insurance policies, lack of availability and accessibility to a larger suite of life insurance products customized to the needs of low-income households to demand-side barriers such as household’s contextual factors that limit their awareness and priority for a life insurance product and their behavioural preferences pertaining to life insurance products.

As an impact metric, it is relevant for financial inclusion and other development programmes