Exploring the impact of Covid-19 on India´s insurance industry

Abstract

This thesis investigates the insurance business performance during the coronavirus pandemic crisis in India in 2020. The main objective of this study is to evaluate the impact of COVID-19 outbreaks on insurance companies and insured customers in India. This critical pandemic generated high instability in the global market, and increased financial risk for corporates, the banking sector, other financial institutions, and overall business activities nationwide. Due to lockdown guidelines, every sector got stuck, jobs were lost, and the flow of money slowed down in the market. The lockdown in the country directly affected many business sectors. The primary source of data for the research came from interviews with insurance representatives, employees, and insurance brokers to analyze how companies moved forward to counter the risk and follow new strategies established to sell new insurance, renew premiums, or process claims. The thesis finds that due to the pandemic, people became aware of the benefits of insurance in the form of insurance coverage. The Indian insurance industry is directly connected with other market sectors of the economy. During the pandemic time, many sectors’ performance went downward, in this case, the general insurance performed averagely. At the same time, life insurance and health insurance policies were in demand.