Going beyond traditional modes of advertising, visibility for the campaign was achieved through the India–South Africa cricket series
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The life insurance industry’s new awareness campaign, aiming to address the challenge of low insurance penetration levels in India, has been able to reach around 35.5 crore people across all channels by December-end, 2025.
The new ‘real and interesting’ multimedia and multilingual campaign across the country, launched in July last year, has been focusing on three large life insurance segments — protection, annuity, and savings plans.
During the initial three-month period (July–September, 2025), the ‘Sabse Pehle Life Insurance’ campaign had reached approximately 31 crore people overall, including 17 crore through digital channels.
These numbers were in line with the early traction the Insurance Awareness Committee (IAC Life) had anticipated and reflected the strong initial visibility the campaign has been able to achieve across multiple media platforms.
Beyond digital platforms, the campaign has included television advertising, including presence during major cricket events such as the India–South Africa series, print coverage in leading vernacular newspapers across regions, outdoor campaigns across 17 cities, wall murals across 325 towns, and ground activations, including engagement through agents, bancassurance touchpoints, and distribution partners.
“By the end of December, 2025, the cumulative reach had grown to approximately 35.5 crore people across all channels. The visibility achieved through the India–South Africa cricket series further strengthened this number. Digital engagement is also higher than the September estimate, with platforms like YouTube, JioCinema, Amazon and others continuing to deliver strong impressions,” Venkatachalam Iyer, Co- Chairperson, Insurance Awareness Committee (IAC-Life), told businessline.
According to him, insurance penetration is influenced by several macroeconomic and industry specific factors — pricing, competing savings instruments, economic conditions, distribution depth, regulatory environment, etc.
“As an industry body, we look at the overall picture and would ideally refrain from limiting ourselves to a set target for improving life insurance’s reach,” Iyer emphasised.
Steps to address dip in coverage
For the country’s life insurance industry, insurance penetration declined from 2.8 per cent in 2023–24 to 2.7 per cent during 2024–25.
Iyer said a number of initiatives are already in motion on the ground level to increase insurance awareness, especially in semi‑urban and rural areas, where the country has the highest protection gap.
In order to ensure accessibility in Bharat markets, vernacular communications are being carried out across 11 languages; on ground dissemination through agents and bank branches are going on where frontline representatives highlight the importance of protection and other categories, and complementary initiatives like the regulator guided State-level and Gram Panchayat–level insurance expansion programmes have also been taken up. These measures work in parallel — industry wide — to deepen awareness beyond metros and into Bharat.
A formal feedback mechanism is already in place to evaluate the progress achieved by the new awareness campaign.
“A study is underway (including the Kantar assessment), and the Committee expects to review updated insights shortly. The IAC and participating life insurance companies engage continuously and collaboratively, and periodic evaluation will guide future phases of the campaign,” Iyer added.
Published on February 6, 2026
