IRDAI has taken the aid of radio stations to promote insurance awareness among people. The program commenced on February 20, 2017 in the form of radio jingles and is to continue for a period of 6 months.
To ensure widespread coverage, not only All India Radio (AIR) channels but even private radio channels are targeted. Fever 104, Suryan FM, RED FM, Radio City and Radio Mirchi will be playing ads in smaller towns as well as cities.
Initially, the campaign is to run in five languages namely Hindi, Tamil, Telugu, Malayalam and Kannada. One such jingle starts with Kishore Kumar’s song – Zindagi ek safar hai suhana where a person draws relevance with the song by saying future is unpredictable and stresses on the need to have life insurance.
The radio jingles cover topics related to life insurance, motor insurance, health insurance, home insurance, policy renewals and mis-selling of products. These also help the customers understand the policy documents before entering into an agreement.
IRDAI has thoughtfully scheduled the timings for the broadcast early mornings and late evenings when the people are unoccupied with work or commuting.
Experts believe that the move will increase insurance penetration in the country. IRDAI’s annual report shows that the penetration of insurance industry has grown marginally to 3.4% in FY 2015-16 compared from 3.3% in FY 2014-15. Insurance penetration is measured as the percentage of insurance premium to GDP.
The insurance regulator is already on a mission to increase insurance penetration. Presently, it runs TV campaigns to create awareness among the masses. The radio jingles are further supposed to act as a catalyst to maximize the awareness outreach.