Insurance made child's play, with comic books

The country's insurance regulator will use the power of comic books to drive home the basic concepts, needs and importance of insurance in one's life, starting right from the school level.

The Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority has readied comic books and hand-books for high school students. They will be distributed in select schools and later scaled up.

The books will contain attractive stories which will try to weave the basic concepts of insurance, products, both traditional and unit-linked, the need for insurance and how to address problems and what mechanisms to choose.

“I believe that children should be made aware of the basics of insurance so that they can be financially-informed adults later,” Mr J. Hari Narayan, Chairman, IRDA told Business Line.

In a new approach, the IRDA plans to catch them young to promote insurance. In the last few years it has been making efforts to simplify procedures, policy documents, and so on to help customers. There is more. “We have asked the Central Board of Secondary Education and State boards of intermediate education to introduce insurance in curriculum,” Mr Hari Narayan said.

Efforts are also on to launch an educational course in insurance, he added. This can also help youth from the rural areas to take up insurance agencies.

The objectives of the initiative are simple. As insurance is a complex subject with much scope for mis-selling, catching educating the young in insurance concepts augurs well.

Further, given the huge potential for growth of the insurance sector in India, a proper awareness would also help the industry.

The other financial regulators such as the Securities and Exchange Board of India and Reserve Bank of India have also been treading a similar path.

While SEBI has been in discussion with Central Board of Secondary Education, the RBI had released simple information booklets.