Majority of investors seek agent’s advice before buying health insurance policies, reveals a Max Bupa Health Insurance study.
Almost six out of every ten Indian investors prefer to buy health insurance policies through an agent, shows a recent study called ‘Pulse 2015’ done by Max Bupa Health Insurance.
The survey was done across six cities – Delhi, Mumbai, Hyderabad, Jaipur, Chennai and Ludhiana which surveyed 1500 respondents (60% male participants). These respondents were a mix of retail and affluent investors. The survey provides insights on how health insurance is perceived, bought and utilized in India.
More than half or 58% of respondents said that they prefer insurance agents to buy a health insurance policy. Only 14% of investors prefer to buy health insurance policies directly from company’s sales persons. The remaining 27% investors prefer buying it from other distribution channel like banks, telesales agents etc. Surprisingly, no investor is willing to buy such policies through web-aggregators.
The study found that majority of investors in the age group of 20-49 years seek agents advice before buying health insurance policies whereas investors over 50 years of age make such decisions themselves.
Meanwhile, the study shows that doctors’ advice (50%) is a key reason for buying a health insurance policies, followed by rise of lifestyle diseases (33%), tax planning (31%) and age (31%).
Other key findings of the study:
· 40% buy health insurance due to rising healthcare costs and over 30% feel that their employer provided health cover is insufficient
· Comprehensive coverage for multiple diseases and protection against lifestyle and critical illnesses are the key reasons for purchase, affordability is the least important
· 32% of the respondents admit they have not read their policy documents; trust on agent cited as the key reason for not reading