SBI, PNB lead Jan Suraksha enrolments to 104 mn

The Jan Suraksha scheme has witnessed over 100 million enrolments in about two months in its life and accident insurance segments.

As on July 1, banks enrolled about 104 million account holders in the Pradhan Mantri Jeevan Jyoti Bima Yojana (PMJJBY) and the Pradhan Mantri Suraksha Bima Yojana (PMSBY). State Bank of India (SBI) and Punjab National Bank (PNB) led the enrolments with 20 million and 7.8 million, respectively.

Insurance executives said, while not all private insurers were active, banks had tied up with Life Insurance Corporation of India (LIC) in the life segment and public general insurers for the accident cover.

The government, after the Jan Dhan Yojana, had embarked on a plan to have a universal social security through insurance and pension. These schemes were launched by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on May 9, under the Jan Suraksha Yojana.

The Jan Suraksha scheme, which involves one life, one non-life and one pension schemes, will extend the benefits of pure-term insurance and group personal accident to the beneficiaries, apart from pension.

“Public sector banks have taken the lead in the schemes. They are even playing a crucial role in claims settlement. Tying up with public sector insurers also proved to be an advantage since they are used to settling huge volumes of claims,” said a senior sector official.

PMJJBY offers a term-life insurance scheme, renewable from year to year, offering life insurance cover for death due to any reason. Here, all savings bank accountholders in the ages of 18 to 50 years can join. Premium payable here is Rs 330 per year.

PMSBY is an accident insurance scheme of Rs 2 lakh, sum assured with premium of Rs 12 per year. The accident cover of the member will terminate on attaining 70 years of age, or due to closure of account with bank or insufficiency of balance to keep insurance in force.

Suresh Sugathan, head-health insurance, Bajaj Allianz General Insurance, said the PMSBY has been instrumental in taking insurance to the under-penetrated areas.

He said apart from the uniform claims handling process, the participating banks are proactively providing all the relevant information required for claims registration and are handholding in case of any further requirement.

“We have settled the first claim under this scheme for an accountholder with our channel partner IDBI Bank within 14 days,” he said.

In terms of enrolments, data from Jan Suraksha portal show SBI is followed by PNB, Bank of Baroda, Canara Bank and Bank of India.

Under the insurance schemes, if someone is covered through more than one account and premium is received by the insurer inadvertently, insurance cover will be restricted to Rs 2 lakh and the premium would be liable to be forfeited.

Initially, there was an apprehensions on whether claim payment and related services would be timely, since the premiums paid are very low. However, insurers said that both the insurance companies and the banks have been taking an equal effort for faster processing of claims.