Covid-19 one of the greatest epidemics of all times, has caused one of the biggest disruptions in human history.
There has been a series of epidemics over centuries but no one was so strong as to put the entire world under its feet, stop the economic activities, kill lakhs of people, put almost the entire world in home quarantine and what not.
And the worst part is we do not have any vaccine, no treatment and don’t know when this agony will end. People are really suffering from this.
The whole economy is at a standstill and it will have a cumulative effect on the economy as a whole. As it was said, the world has become a global village. It is this concept that has caused the most destruction.
Risk Managers were caught napping and they could not anticipate the fallout of the pandemic. It should be a good lesson for them to prepare for any such situation in future.
IRDAI issued some guidelines for claim payment for health and life insurance policies. It could have been more proactive to address the concern of business enterprises where they did not have any answer whether premises remain unoccupied or what would be the fate of coverage.
The Life Insurance Industry has seen a decline of 32% in business. It may continue in the near future also. Though the health insurance market may see an upsurge as people realize the importance of health insurance but still, now the first priority of people would be to save money for crisis situations rather than investing in insurance.
Tough times for all business activity ahead and this will also impact the general insurance business. And this will have a ripple effect on the whole economy.
With the current situation in sight it does not seem that the situation is going to improve in the coming days. The only solution I think is to learn to live with corona and take utmost protection for the safety of all.
