Daily enrolments see big drop in Jan Suraksha insurance

The Pradhan Mantri Jan Suraksha Yojana (PMJSY) insurance scheme has seen a steep fall in daily average enrolments this financial year, against the year-ago period.

The June 1 to March 31 period in the last financial year saw an average enrolment of 0.4 million policies in pure-term and personal accidents a day. This has dropped to 23,150 this financial year (April 1-September 26 period), according to data from the Jan Suraksha website.

During FY16, the number of enrolments under Pradhan Mantri Jeevan Jyoti Bima Yojana (PMJJBY) and Pradhan Mantri Suraksha Bima Yojana (PMSBY) stood at 123.57 million as on March 31. This means, on an average, for the 10-month period for which the scheme was operational, 0.4 million enrolments were done every day. Banks were delivering these schemes via direct debit of premia.

This financial year, where the scheme has completed around 176 days, only four million new policies have been enrolled. This makes it an average of 23,150 daily.

Insurance executives said, in the initial phases, bank channels had played an active role in getting new policyholders. Such initiatives have gone down. "Since it is not their core business, promotional activity from banks has also reduced significantly, which has directly affected new policy numbers under the scheme," said a chief executive officer of a midsize private life insurance company.

The PMJSY, which provides a pension scheme, a term insurance cover under PMJJBY and an accident insurance cover under PMSBY, has already crossed 127 million insurance policyholders. The plans have a cover of Rs 2 lakh each, with a premium of only Rs 12 a year for accident insurance and Rs 330 for the life product.