UNDERSTANDING THE INSURANCE LITERACY ROLE BEHIND THE PURCHASE OF INSURANCE: BEHAVIORAL STUDY OF INSURANCE PURCHASE DECISIONS OF WOMEN

ABSTRACT

Background of the Study The extant literature on life insurance in India is mostly descriptive in nature, with a few empirical studies that have looked at literacy and awareness for the insurance and related terms among the women and resulting into insurance demand. In this context the impact of literacy or awareness on the behavior in insurance market has remained largely unexplored. Given the low levels of insurance penetration and its critical role in increasing financial wellbeing, it is important to understand the insurance purchase behaviors of Indians particularly women. There are several issues that are of interest, the level of financial literacy and awareness, the level of social influence in the purchase decision, understanding the motivations behind the purchase and understanding whether the existing insurance providers are meeting the needs of the consumer. So, this research work is aimed to explore the relative association in between the literacy for insurance and the purchase decision of working women. This is the primary motivation for this study. Research Methods: Universe of research work was the working women of public and private institutions of different organized sectors, but in order to conquer the research limitations may taken place just because of the wider geographical scope, the geographical scope for the present research was restricted up to the organized public and private sector institutions of Rajasthan, Delhi, Uttar Pradesh and Gujarat states of India. The responses derived from the duly filled questionnaires received from 2034 women working in different institutional setups were encoded and statistically analyzed to determine their literacy for insurance as motivating factor which drive them to purchase insurance. Testing of the significance or insignificance of the hypotheses was statistically performed through Ordinary Least Squares (OLS) Regression Test with Standard Errors (S.E.). Statistically it was confirmed that the relative a Experiential Conclusions: ssociation between the sector (Public and Private) of organization with which working women is associated and insurance literacy determinants significantly affect the working women's insurance purchase decisions and attitude. The empirical results drawn helped to recognize that there is peer need to work on developing effective insurance literacy interventions which can be driven through individual knowledge and skill and insurance company interventions.