India: Most employees expect life cover from employers
Source: Asia Insurance Review | Oct 2015
While an overwhelming majority of employees – 73% – in India expect their employers to offer life cover under group schemes, only 30% employers actually provide the benefit, according to the PNB MetLife Employee Benefits Trend Study 2015. This indicates a mismatch between employee expectations and the benefits actually being offered by employers in India.
In contrast, while only 39% of employees want a critical illness policy, 85% of employers are willing to offer it.
One solution to the expectation gap is for employers to offer employees a choice to customise their own personal benefits through flexible or voluntary benefit programmes, the study suggested. The findings show that employees are willing to take up additional coverage on health, life and accidents either jointly paid by employers and employees or from employees’ own purses. Indeed, 61% would buy life insurance without support from employers.
The survey covered 323 employers and 2,432 employees across various sectors in India. The survey studied factors such as employee benefits currently provided, communications, employee engagement and their expectations of employer benefits.