Exploring The Rural Markets in Life Insurance Business in India: The Experience of Lic

The size of rural population of India is about 833.1 million which constituted 68.84% of total population. Sustained and conscious efforts have been made to carry the message of life insurance to the rural areas, especially in the backward and remote areas, resulting steady growth of new business from these areas. In this backdrop, the main objective of the paper is to explore the opportunities and the challenges involved in capturing the rural markets in life insurance business in India. The Life Insurance Corporation of India (LIC), the market leader and also a public sector giant, has been extending coverage to economically weaker sections of the society through various social security group schemes targeting masses and non-conventional groups in the unorganised sector. However, the Indian life insurance industry has to address many challenges in an effort to increase the market penetration and density. This paper highlights the role to be played by LIC in tapping the potential rural markets in the country. One of such challenges confronting the life insurance industry today in the country is to generate the required level of awareness about the benefits of insurance to the people particularly living in semi-urban and rural areas.