In the past few months, Indians have shown immense maturity with regard to buying insurance products. However, even now a large part of the population is still not having basic life insurance cover (term plans), health insurance, or any other policy.

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Here are some of the insurance policies one must surely buy in 2021:

Term plans

According to Rakesh Goyal, director at Probus Insurance, an insurtech broking company, 2021 is the best time to buy term plans if any investors do not have a term plan. The insurance regulator has asked life insurance companies to launch standard term insurance plans called ‘Saral Jeevan Bima’ from January 1, 2021 and this is the best plan for people who do not have any life insurance cover.

Health insurance

While there has been huge traction towards health insurance since the start of the pandemic but still, many of them are still under insured.

According to Vivek Chaturvedi, chief marketing officer and head of direct (online) sales at Digit Insurance, health insurance is mandatory to have for the coming year and ahead, preferably policies that cover pandemics and other viral diseases.

It is generally seen that people buy lower sum policies because of high premiums.

Also read: Six things to consider before buying health insurance for cancer patients

"In such cases, investors can easily buy top-ups or super top-ups on their base policy to further increase the health cover. In today's time, one needs a health cover of at least Rs 10 lakh for a family living in a metro city. For people who are still waiting to buy health insurance, they should start with Arogya Sanjeevani—which is again standard health insurance plans. Here the premiums can be in the range of Rs 2,500-3,000 for 5 lakh cover for a 30-year-old individual," Goyal suggests.

Home/property insurance

As per Chaturvedi, the adverse impact observed from the recent natural calamities that stuck in different parts of India has not only boosted the demand of having property cover but also has increased a lot of awareness on the need for such insurance cover at such distressing times. So property and home insurance policies that specifically cover natural disasters are also the need of the hour.

"Home insurance not only covers such situations but also other risks like theft, burglary, electronic gadgets, and home appliances. Here, premiums are in the range of Rs 4,000-Rs 8,000 for sum insured of Rs 5 lakh and Rs 10 lakh, respectively. Investors should not look at insurance as an expense as this is the only product that can protect one from any untoward event,” Goyal suggests.

Also read: 7 reasons to review your health insurance plan annually

Cyber insurance

There is another 'must-have' policy such as cyber insurance.

In the words of Dhirendra Mahyavanshi, co-founder, Turtlemint -- an insurtech company, "COVID has introduced us to the virtual culture with WFH (Work for Home) and other virtual meetings which is the reality in today’s world. Here is where the protection of intellectual property and assets with cyber insurance has gained importance, especially with the concept of data protection. Although it hasn’t gained enough importance yet; but, with the recent surge in online fraud, identity theft has been a concern for today’s generation and hence needs to be addressed with cyber insurance policies."

Motor insurance

India’s fear of contracting coronavirus has given a push not only to health insurance but in a way to the motor insurance segment too.

"More and more people prefer having their own vehicles for mobility to safeguard their health and safety rather than depending on public transport. This means one should also mandatorily buy motor insurance," Chaturvedi opines.

Travel insurance

The travel and tourism industry has also started taking baby steps towards normalcy. Though all hotels, destinations, airlines are taking stringent precautions and protocols implemented by the government but to make travel safe and secure, travel insurance needs to become a must-have, experts suggest.

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First Published:Dec 17, 2020 6:51 PM IST