Life Insurers focus health insurance to boost business

The life insurers have been trying to enhance their businesses by focusing on health insurance and by introducing new products since the Covid-19 pandemic hit the sector.

Market insiders said the insurers could not reach their customers for collecting premiums amid the pandemic. At the same time, the customers were also unable to pay the premiums and many of them drop policies.

As a result, premium collection by the insurers declined over 50% amid the pandemic. Currently, their businesses are turning around after lifting the restrictions over the Covid-19 situation, said the people involved in this sector.

They further said now the companies are able to reach their customers to collect the premiums and they are trying to introduce new products for them.

If the covid-19 situation comes under control, the business recovery will accelerate, hoped the market insiders.

Sheikh Rakibul Karim, acting CEO of Guardian Life Insurance Limited, said "The pandemic has resulted in a sharp rise in life insurance awareness and we are trying to ride on that. We are trying to sell more life insurance along with health insurance to boost the revenue."

"We launched Guardian Shield – an easy and inexpensive term life plan – that allows customers to easily avail health insurance. We are also heavily promoting our digital platform 'EasyLife,' where customers can easily avail a variety of life and health insurance plans", he said.   

He further said, "We are trying to boost revenue from every angle, but the process is still rather slow. For selling high-value retail insurance products, there is the issue of attaching revenue stamps and providing hard copies of documents with wet signatures which takes up too much time."

"We are now working on a 'Digital Revenue Stamp' with our regulator and het NBR (National Board of Revenue), so that receiving high-value customers becomes quick and convenient. This initiative will be a milestone for the industry and will make life insurance easy in the true sense," he further added.

SM Nuruzzaman, chief executive officer of Zenith Islami Life Insurance Ltd, said the life insurance business almost came to halt amid the pandemic, but the health insurance business has resumed properly.

"We have already planned to introduce a new product for the customers. We have arranged physical meetings with our employees instead of meeting online to accelerate the process," he said.

"Our group health insurance policies have gone up 15-20% amid the pandemic. We have provided policy supports to our customers in the hospitals," he continued.

On the other hand, the Insurance Development and Regulatory Authority (IDRA) has reformed the supervisory level and commission structure to control the management cost of life insurance companies, which will be effective from 1 September this year.

This will reduce the cost of life insurance firms by up to 15%, deemed the IDRA.

The Bangladesh Securities and Exchange Commission (BSEC) has moved to bring stock market staffers under health insurance facilities owing to the ongoing Covid-19 situation.

In the second quarter (April to June) of 2021, some listed companies fared better compared to the same period of 2020.

The National Life Insurance Company Limited's life insurance revenue increased Tk96.33 crore in that period, while its total life fund was Tk4,120.85 crore.

The Sonali Life Insurance Company Limited's life insurance revenue increased Tk25.25 crore during the same period, and its total life fund was Tk1,93.53 crore.