Theme: Financial Lives of Poor Households

In this note, we discuss how the difficulty of selling life insurance led to bundling insurance with savings2, how such bundling can be sub-optimal, and why such products are popular despite adverse customer experiences. We then make a case for providing relevant, complete, and comparable information that can aid suitable product decisions, sale, and persistence. We also offer a template for what such a Customer Information Sheet could look like.

India needs a robust and comprehensive financial customer protection regime, which it currently lacks. Imagine the following scenario. Raja and Rani are a low-income householder couple with two children in elementary school. They also take care of Raja’s ailing mother. The household’s monthly income is ₹20,000.

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.

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.

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.

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 seek loans often, but credit is suitable if it helps sustain or improve financial well-being. This is what must be ensured by lenders, regulators & policymakers.

Tremendous efforts have gone into creating new authoritiessuch as the Central Consumer Protection Authority.

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