Sowmini G Prasad

In light of the challenges and opportunities presented by the prevalence of Digital Financial Services (DFS), the Digitizing Women’s Money Management (DWMM) project is aimed at contributing to the improvement of the landscape of financial services for women in Low-Income Households (LIHs).

In an increasingly digitized world, Digital Financial Services (DFS) have emerged as a key tool for transacting, borrowing, saving, and investing. Policymakers and Financial Service Providers (FSPs) are keen to leverage DFS to advance financial inclusion, particularly for women from Low-Income Households (LIHs).

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.

The Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority of India (Insurance Products) Regulations, 2023, hereafter "Draft Regulations", was released by the Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority of India (IRDAI) in December 2023.

Insurance companies should align their sales practices to generate the best outcomes for low income households by ensuring easy access to a variety of products with disclosures that provide accurate information.

When viewed from a consumer’s perspective, these challenges manifest at different stages of their journey with a health insurance program, beginning from the decision to enrol in a program and ending at the renewal stage. While tweaks to the design of the health insurance program or moving to a more integrated model of healthcare provision may help in this blog post, we explore the role that social capital can play in circumventing some of these challenges.

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?”.

Large gaps exist in life insurance coverage in India. The paper examines this issue through a supply-side lens by examining the two key features—the distinction between the agent and the broker model and the alignment of incentive structures with product life-cycle servicing.

Unlike term plans that provide life risk cover or unit-linked schemes, where returns are market-linked, endowment plans offer maturity benefits upon survival & minimum guaranteed return.

Low-income households work with irregular income inflows, resulting in shrinking financial planning horizon and necessitating frequent decisions in response to frequent changes.