Since 2009-10, the Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority of India (IRDAI) has undertaken various Consumer Education Initiatives through print, electronic, and other media to educate consumers about insurance concepts and procedures. The media channels used include print advertisements, TV and radio spots, comic books, posters, policy-holders’ handbooks, animation films, virtual tours, an insurance education campaign on the Delhi Metro, Internet campaigns, You Tube, and consumer education workshops.

NCAER conducted a pre-launch survey of insurance awareness for IRDAI in 2010-11. This NCAER study found low awareness levels of insurance, especially non-life insurance, with only 54 per cent of the households surveyed aware of such insurance. The study strongly pointed to the need to increase consumer insurance awareness.

IRDAI recently again requested NCAER to evaluate the effectiveness of its nation-wide awareness campaigns and a special initiative in Tripura carried out after 2010 as a follow-up to the earlier survey. For this work, NCAER carried out a survey in 2015 across 30 states and Union Territories (UTs) in India in both rural and urban areas.

The states and UTs covered in the study include Andhra Pradesh, Arunachal Pradesh, Assam, Bihar, Chandigarh, Chhattisgarh, Daman & Diu, Delhi, Goa, Gujarat, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, Jharkhand, Karnataka, Kerala, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Odisha, Puducherry, Punjab, Rajasthan, Sikkim, Tamil Nadu, Telangana, Tripura, Uttarakhand, Uttar Pradesh, and West Bengal

This new survey measures insurance awareness of insured and uninsured households for life, health and general insurance against the background of their socio-economic characteristics. It also measures household awareness of IRDAI advertisements relating to spurious calls, rights and duties of the insured, and grievance and dispute resolution mechanisms. The NCAER team has compared its 2010 survey with the 2015 survey on a number of dimensions in order to analyse the effectiveness of the awareness campaigns by IRDAI and other companies.

The study details the findings at the zonal and inter-state levels and the differences between insured and uninsured households and between rural and urban areas on their awareness about insurance products. Comparisons have also been made between the two survey periods wherever possible. In order to identify the reasons for not buying insurance, the study specifically assesses the awareness levels of uninsured households on their need for insurance, the types of insurance available, the benefits of insurance, and the benefits of investment in the Unit Linked Insurance Plans. The major reason could be identified by the lower level of economic resources as well as lower level of education amongst the uninsured. This makes a case for having more nuanced insurance products for various sections of the society. In addition, credit-linked insurance has not picked up, given the recent series of financial scams.

The NCAER study includes a discussion on Tripura as IRDAI launched a special Insurance Awareness

Campaign in January 2015 in this state in collaboration with the state government. This campaign was designed to achieve 100 per cent financial literacy and financial inclusion over a period of two years. The findings show that the level of awareness about life and health insurance has improved among both insured and uninsured households in the study districts in the state. Partnerships with states could thus prove to be a constructive way of moving forward toachieve higher insurance awareness and thereby inclusiveness.