| Insurance
Insurance in India
After independence, in
1947, a number of private insurance companies were providing life and general insurance in
India*. In 1956, life insurance was nationalized and the Life Insurance
Corporation of India (LIC) became the only authorized life insurer. Later in 1970, about
200 private non-life insurance companies were amalgamated and four general insurance
companies were formed under General Insurance Corporation of India. These companies
started working as a commercial insurance company with a limited social objective. Though
quite a few schemes were devised oriented towards rural poor but they didn’t do much
to help real poor because
- They were designed without proper market
survey so they were not fulfilling poor people’s needs.
- Procedures were too complicated for
illiterate poor.
- Insurance companies did not know how to
reach out to poor.
Thus, government
insurance companies failed to give satisfactory services to the poor people in the last
three decades. Finally in the year 2000 government deregulated the insurance sector and
permitted private investors and companies to enter in this field.
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SEWA
Insurance
In India, more than 90%
workers are in the informal economy today. Of the female labour force in India, more than
94 % are informal or unorganized workers. They do not obtain regular salaried employment
with welfare benefits like workers in the organized sector. They are the unprotected
labour force of the country. Their work is not counted and they remain invisible, though
they contribute significantly to the nation’s economy.
Life is full of struggles
for poor women. They work for long hours in poor conditions for the whole life. When they
cannot work because of biological crises (sickness, pregnancy, accidents), economic crises
(unemployment, debt), natural or man made disasters (flood, fire, riots, drought,
earthquake) it results in loss of work, income and assets. Many times they have to sell
their assets like land and even borrow money at very high rates. This leads them deeper
into the vicious cycle of poverty and indebtedness.
Thus, given poor
women’s strong need for a buffer in times of crises, in 1992 SEWA started an
integrated insurance programme for its members. It was started with the objective of
providing a support to poor women in times of calamities. It is a collaborative effort of
SEWA, SEWA Bank and the nationalised insurance companies. Currently, SEWA has its own
insurance unit called VimoSEWA. Which insures women for life, health, assets, widowhood
and accidents in Gujarat. Starting with 7,000 members, it has now reached more than 70,000
women in 11 districts of Gujarat state. The total number of insureds, women and men, is
90,000.
Today our programme is a
group insurance package linked with the insurance companies, as mentioned earlier. There
are three different packages according to the needs and affordability of the members.
Women have an option to insure their husbands’ lives and health by giving additional
premium.
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