With unanticipated job threats, like the novel coronavirus pandemic, people in India are seldom insurance covered, shall they lose their job or income source.
In fact, according to the findings offered by the National Statistical Office (NSO), India’s GDP in the 1st quarter of 2020 contracted by 23.9%, with some positive recovery now reflecting in the past couple of months.
In order to help such job professionals with a financial backup, India’s leading online insurance marketplace Policybazaar has launched a new insurance vertical, through which customers can buy insurance products which will cover them in case of unanticipated future income/job losses.
Let’s learn about this in detail.
Policybazaar’s New Insurance Vertical
In the current scenario, professionals losing jobs are not popularly covered by any sort of job/income loss insurance covers.
Policybazaar has launched its new job-loss insurance vertical to disrupt this sphere.
“The growing middle class in the country needs options to safeguard themselves from sudden financial shocks as they tend to have liabilities of paying monthly installments to service loans. A loss of job/income insurance is the right policy to own to protect from such eventualities.”, says CEO of Policybazaar.com, Sarbvir Singh.
In the ‘first of its kind’ policy in the Indian market, this new insurance policy will allow a customer to purchase job loss insurance products after comparing it with other products of the kind.
Singh adds that while comparing and purchasing such insurance products, the customer will not be mandated to purchase a base insurance policy along with it.
EMI Benefits and Self-Employed Benefits
The products offered by the online insurer will offer EMI benefits for a period of upto 3 months, in case of a job loss.
In an interview with Moneycontrol, Singh adds, “The cover will be affordable. For example, if you have a Rs 20,000 monthly EMI, you need to pay less than Rs 2,000 for a job-loss cover that will offer three-months-EMI benefit.”
Also, some of these plans not only cover job-losses but also those customers who are self-employed.
What are these Benefits?
The plans cover 2 different conditions:
#1. If job/income loss is due to termination/lay-off, and
#2. If job/income loss is due to disability or death.
In the first case, the insurance plan helps by covering/paying off your loans for upto 3 months’ period.
While in the second case, the insurance plan helps by providing weekly salaries to the customer for upto 2 years.
There are different plans available for both salaried and self-employed individuals, and different benefits are offered under both the scenarios.
Coverage for loss of income/job due to partial or permanent disability includes weekly salary benefits ranging as high as ?1 lakh per week (subject to customer’s net salary) for a maximum of 100 weeks.
Few plans even offer coverage for loss of job/income due to critical illness, partial permanent disability or partial temporary disability.
Customers can even enjoy tax rebate under Section 80 (D) of the Income Tax Act on premiums paid against the policy.