Insurance In India Gets More Innovative And Quirky

The insurance sector in India has boomed in the last two decades with more and more demand for insurance policies on life, health, personal accident cover, motor insurance, etc. But now the sector is expanding its horizons to unchartered territories which were traditionally, the bastion of their western contemporaries.

Taking cues from their Hollywood counterparts, our Bollywood stars too are not leaving any stone unturned. While reigning superstars like Aamir Khan and Rajnikanth have insured their films, India’s nightingale LataMangeshkar has insured her voice. Incidentally, Rajnikanth insured his voice too and even obtained a copyright for it, suggest reports.

Taking note of the fact that an unforeseen mishap can strike anyone, anything, anytime, insurance in India is slowly but surely coming of age as it is delving into unusual areas like art and antiques insurance, kidnapping insurance, wedding insurance, pet insurance, long term care insurance, disability insurance among others.

Most people harbour this erroneous belief that an art and antiques insurance policy would entail protecting their items from theft. While this is partially true, an insurance cover for these is much more than that. Here, a policy covers the antique or art work from everything like an accident, damage caused by fire and transportation risk among others.

Body part insurance is yet another segment which has caught the imagination of Bollywood celebrities. The latest to be bitten by this bug are starlets Mallika Sherawat and Minissha Lamba. The duo have spent lakhs insuring their assets while among male stars, John Abraham has jumped on the bandwagon.

Indian sports stars too are not far behind in this arena. There have been recent reports of tennis ace Sania Mirza getting her hands insured.

Wedding insurance is yet another unique policy that has found takers in India. Factors like theft/damage to wedding dress, jewellery, cancellation of wedding and damage caused by an unforeseen accident and fire are some of the primary reasons for which wedding insurance is done. Yet another segment is pet insurance where animal lovers are willing to pay a good premium to ensure the costs related to their pets in terms of accidents, maintenance and medical treatment are taken care of.

Long term care insurance is designed to keep the insured comfortable and happy in their sunset years. On the other hand, a disability insurance takes care of the insured where he may have incurred permanent or temporary disability that impacts his life.

Many of us have spent precious minutes or hours looking for the lost keys of our car or household. Now, it is the burden of the insurance company to provide a cover for these lost keys. What’s more is that in case your keys don’t get replaced in the first 24 hours then the insurer can provides you the cost of hiring a car.

The other interesting insurance policy is the personal identity protection. It covers your losses owing to a lost wallet, assault at an ATM and also a robbery at ATM after you’ve withdrawn the money from there.