India: Life protection gap exceeds US$7 trillion

| 26 Jan 2018

The insurance regulator IRDAI has said that the protection gap in Indian life insurance stands at INR480 trillion (US$7.53 trillion).

Speaking at an insurance summit in Mumbai earlier this month, Mr T S Vijayan, IRDAI Chairman, said that over INR6 trillion of insurance premiums were collected in India in 2017. The potential is even bigger, reported Times of India citing Mr Vijayan.

He said that a protection gap exists too in health insurance. "If you consider the INR3 trillion spent by people on healthcare, this should be the size of the health insurance market if all the costs were to be borne by insurance."

Speaking about the opportunities in the Indian insurance market, Mr Vijayan said that with several foreign reinsurers setting up branches in India and Gift City throwing open offshore opportunities, India could become a reinsurance hub.

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