It’s not just groceries and gadgets that are selling like hotcakes online.
Health and motor insurance sales are growing online, reveals a survey by ICICI Lombard and Google India.
While the 25-35 age group is the most active online in buying non-life insurance products, mobile is the preferred device to access information on the Internet.
The online purchase of non-life insurance products in India is growing across buyers in metros and non-metros.
“Our studies indicate that Internet will influence Rs 300,000-400,000 crore (Rs 3-4 trillion) worth of insurance sales in India by 2020,” Vikas Agnihotri, Industry Director, Google India, said.
The adoption was higher for motor insurance with 24 per cent users buying these policies online, whereas 12 per cent users had purchased health insurance online, finds the survey.
These findings were revealed basis an offline survey of 3007 respondents who were active Internet users, spread across 18 cities in India.
The findings revealed that Internet users in the age group of 25 to 35 were the most active in buying non-life insurance products online.
For motor insurance, the behavior was consistent across age group with even the older age band i.e. 46 to 55 preferring to buy/renew motor insurance online.
Ease of purchase and convenience were the primary drivers for buying motor insurance online.
In case of health insurance, first time buyers were more willing to buy and renew health insurance online.
Consumer behavior for research and purchase across desktop and mobile was similar with 80 per cent users having accessed the internet for insurance related search/purchase through the desktop/ laptop, while a higher 85 per cent doing so through the mobile/ tablet.
This clearly indicates that consumers tend to shift between devices during the research phase.
Sanjay Datta, Chief, Underwriting and Claims, ICICI Lombard General Insurance, said, “The survey findings clearly reveal that the online medium is playing a critical role in the purchase of non-life insurance products. Our data reveals that 25 per cent more policy holders buying online opt for family floater policy compared to offline customers. Even in terms of retention, 35 per cent more customers buying health insurance online renew their policy in the second year compared to offline customers.”
In terms of barriers to purchase non-life insurance products online, personal contact with an agent and better post sales service were cited as the key reasons for not using the Internet.
For motor insurance, the growth is coming from non-metro users as search queries on Google from non-metros are growing at 43 per cent year on year compared to metros at 32 per cent.
For health insurance, search behavior on Google was consistent across users in metros and non-metros with queries growing around 45 per cent year on year.
