The dreaded 31st March deadline: Most of us have experienced the rush to either make tax-saving investments or renew insurance policies before the end of the financial year.
For a growing segment of affluent and wealthy Indians, insurance planning follows a different rhythm altogether.
I recently observed a family business council meeting where insurance was indeed on the agenda, but not in the traditional way.
The family had recently acquired a significant art collection, added a second home in London, and was navigating potential succession challenges within their manufacturing business. Their conversation wasn’t about tax savings or basic coverage—it was about protecting a legacy.
This approach represents a fundamental shift in perspective that anyone building wealth can learn from. While tax efficiency certainly matters, comprehensive protection planning transcends annual deadlines and focuses on preserving what you’ve built—whether that’s a multi-generational business empire or your family’s first significant assets.
This newsletter explores this world of protection strategies. Understanding how India’s elite safeguard their assets, reputation, and legacy offers valuable insights into comprehensive risk management that goes far beyond checking the Section 80C box.
In this newsletter, I’ll cover-
- A snapshot of India’s insurance landscape
- How HNIs are thinking differently about protection
- A breakdown of the different types of insurance
Let’s dive in.
India’s insurance landscape: A market in transformation
India’s insurance sector is undergoing a remarkable transformation, emerging as a powerhouse in the global market. Already the fifth-largest life insurance market worldwide, it has grown at a staggering CAGR of 17% over the last two decades and is projected to reach USD 222 billion by 2026.
Beyond life insurance, the industry’s scale is set to expand dramatically—assets under management are expected to hit USD 11 trillion by 2047, a clear indicator of the sector’s rising importance in financial planning and wealth preservation.
The rise of InsurTech: Reshaping access and experience
The pandemic reshaped consumer attitudes toward insurance, making health and life coverage a financial priority rather than an afterthought. Rising healthcare costs further reinforce this trend—according to the ACKO India Health Report 2024 (a very insightful read, do check it out), the average claim size has surged by 11.35%, reflecting the growing burden of medical inflation.
In response, the Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority of India (IRDAI) aims for universal insurance coverage by 2047. A bold vision—but one increasingly within reach, thanks to the rise of InsurTech.
Over 150+ InsurTech companies are now driving the growth of the insurance industry, with industry revenue growing 12x in the past five years to USD 750 million, and valuations soaring to USD 13.6 billion.
These firms are tackling key market barriers:
- Accessibility – Embedding insurance within corporate benefits, SME networks, and digital platforms, particularly in Tier 2+ cities, while empowering traditional distributors with tech and data.
- Awareness and trust – Expanding coverage beyond hospitalisation to include holistic wellness, preventive care, and out-of-hospital expenses, which account for 35% of India’s healthcare spending.
- Affordability – Leveraging rich data for personalised pricing and modular insurance bundles, making protection more flexible and tailored.
As the industry grows and the relevance of insurance becomes more prominent, I have been fascinated by how the top 1% look at insurance.
Insurance for the wealthy: A shift in perspective
The insurance needs of India’s ultra-wealthy have evolved dramatically. The question is no longer “Do I need insurance?” but rather “How do I integrate insurance into my financial strategy to enhance protection, optimise taxation, and ensure intergenerational wealth transfer?”
The wealthy typically have complex financial portfolios comprising significant assets, investments, and liabilities. What they seek are customisable, flexible insurance plans that act as a financial safety net—insulating them and their families against various forms of liability.
The good news is that the insurance industry today is poised to deliver all these solutions to the wealthy.
The wealthy are navigating an entirely different insurance landscape—one where cyber security cover, reputation risk management, kidnap and ransom coverage, specialised art collection policies, and directors’ liability protection are standard considerations, not exotic add-ons.
So what kind of insurance do wealth creators need?
1. Life Insurance
For India’s affluent families, life insurance serves purposes far beyond the standard protection and income replacement. HNIs and UHNIs deploy it as a strategic tool for wealth preservation, business continuity, and legacy planning.
The stakes are particularly high in the Indian context, where business interests are often closely held within families. Life insurance ensures a smooth transfer of wealth to heirs while covering potential tax liabilities.
Life insurance provides four strategic advantages:
- Leverage: A relatively modest premium secures a significantly larger payout—creating efficient capital for legacy or liquidity needs.
- Certainty: Predictable premiums and guaranteed death benefits offer clarity in an otherwise complex financial picture.
- Simplicity: It bypasses probate, shields against creditors, and ensures a seamless transition to beneficiaries—regardless of jurisdiction.
- Liquidity: Ensures immediate liquidity to cover debts, inheritance taxes, or business continuity when significant wealth is locked in illiquid assets like real estate, business and artwork.
A few common options for life insurance for the wealthy and ultra-wealthy are –
- Term insurance – The most straightforward and affordable option, offering high coverage for a fixed period.
- Whole life insurance – Provides lifelong coverage with cash value accumulation, which is useful for legacy planning.
Private Placement Life Insurance (PPLI), which is quite popular outside India, is a variable universal life insurance which can provide investors with a tax-efficient means of investing in private equity, hedge funds, and other managed strategies to pass wealth to future generations and potentially supplement lifetime cash flow.
I have delved a little deeper into life insurance as an important tool for estate planning below, in the newsletter.
2. Health Insurance: It’s not about affordability, it’s about access and efficiency
For most, health insurance is a safety net—protection against the possibility of not being able to afford medical care. But for the wealthy and ultra-wealthy, affordability may not be an issue. So, the natural question arises: If you can pay for the best treatment anytime, why bother with insurance at all?
Yes, you can pay for treatment out of pocket. But top-tier health insurance plans go beyond just cost coverage. They’re about:
- Global access to care: Whether it’s a specialised cancer treatment at Mayo Clinic in the U.S. or advanced cardiac surgery in Singapore, international health coverage ensures you can seek world-class treatment without dealing with complex international billing or out-of-network limitations.
- Priority healthcare access: Many premium plans offer concierge services—access to leading specialists, faster second opinions, and personalised case management. For example, a top-tier Niva Bupa or HDFC ERGO international policy often includes direct tie-ups with global hospitals and door-to-door medical concierges.
- Reducing expenses: While an INR 20–30 lakh surgery may not dent a UHNI’s net worth, multiple medical events across the family—especially during overseas treatments—can snowball into significant expenses.
- Safeguarding earmarked money: Insurance helps preserve capital earmarked for investments, philanthropy, or succession—keeping personal wealth untouched by unplanned health events.
Insurers now offer plans with:
- Global medical coverage
- No sub-limits on room charges
- Coverage for expensive OPD and diagnostics (like PET scans or robotic surgeries)
- Maternity, IVF, newborn, and even organ donor-related expenses
- Annual full-body check-ups and wellness benefits
So, if you’ve dismissed health insurance until now, think of it as holistic protection for your entire family—across age and health stages—with annual full-body check-ups, mental health support, and wellness coaching baked in.
3. Business interests
For business owners and entrepreneurs, protecting the business is just as important as protecting themselves. It is advisable to consult an insurance advisor who understands your needs and requirements and suggests the insurance covers you need to take, for yourself, your family and your business.
A few common covers, globally and in India are –
- Directors & Officers (D&O) liability insurance: Protects personal assets of corporate directors and officers against claims resulting from alleged wrongful acts in their capacity as directors and officers.
- Keyman insurance – This covers financial loss to the business in case of the death, disability, or critical illness of a key employee—someone whose expertise is crucial to the organisation. The policy helps absorb immediate losses, fund a replacement, and maintain business continuity. It’s also tax-deductible for the company.
- Buy-sell agreement insurance – In the event of a partner’s death or exit, this policy funds the purchase of their share, ensuring a smooth ownership transition amongst the rest of the partners. It helps avoid legal battles with surviving spouses or children for control and maintains business continuity.
- Kidnap and ransom insurance: Covers costs related to kidnapping, extortion, and wrongful detention.
- Business interruption insurance: Covers lost income and operating expenses during periods when business operations are suspended due to covered perils.
- Group health insurance: Comprehensive health coverage for employees, often with enhanced benefits for executives.
- Intellectual Property insurance: Covers legal expenses to defend IP rights and potential damages.
- Reputation insurance – Increased visibility also brings greater vulnerability—one incident can significantly impact client confidence and cause a sharp drop in Net Promoter Score (NPS), if you run a business or organisation. Typically used by larger companies, this covers actual revenue loss resulting from a brand-damaging event.
Here it is important to also consider ‘General liability insurance’ which covers claims of bodily injury, property damage, and personal injury that occur on business premises or due to operations. Whether it’s a personal injury claim, a defamation lawsuit, or liability tied to a philanthropic initiative, this umbrella cover helps ensure that large, unexpected claims don’t disrupt long-term plans or erode personal wealth. Typically, such policies cover bodily injury, property damage liability, landlord liability for rental properties, legal defence costs for covered lawsuits, and claims arising from defamation, false arrest, or malicious prosecution.
4. Luxury and alternative assets
In addition to your vehicles, your high value assets and investments like private jets, yachts, art collections, wine cellars, classic cars, jewellery, aircraft, and antiques, need to be insured too.
To protect these, you need a specialised cover that reflects the true asset value, accounts for reputational impact, and safeguards against anything that could go wrong.
Global players like DUAL North America now offer up to USD 100 million in per-risk coverage for fine art, jewellery, couture, wine, spirits, and other high-value assets—covering risks from wildfires and natural disasters to theft and accidental damage.
5. Real estate
If you insure assets like yachts and luxury cars, it goes without saying that you must insure your real estate assets – residential and commercial. It is necessary to protect your properties whether they are in our outside India, from damage from natural calamities like floods, fire, earthquakes or man-made events like theft, burglary and malicious activities. Some insurance companies also provide mega risk policies that include cover for building, plant and machinery, furniture fixtures, electrical equipment and stocks of all kinds.
6. Cyber risk
Cyber protection has become an essential part of wealth and reputation management, particularly for wealth creators.
In early 2024, India ranked as the second most targeted nation globally for encrypted cyberattacks, just after the US. The rise of Generative AI and the potential for non-malicious system failures have further complicated the risk landscape.
As legal frameworks around data protection strengthen, there is a growing interest in structured cyber insurance solutions to protect against cyber-attacks, ransom demands, and defamation lawsuits.
Between 2018 and 2023, India’s cyber insurance premiums grew at a CAGR of nearly 30%, with estimates suggesting the market could exceed USD 100 million by 2026.
A few things your policy must cover are –
- Unauthorized digital transactions
- Identity theft
- Data theft/ misuse
- Cyber extortion
- Social Media hack/ compromise
- Privacy breach and data breach liability
- Smart home cover
But there’s something you need to remember – Cyber insurance isn’t a magic shield that keeps threats away. It works best when it complements the security measures you have in place. Investing in robust cyber security mechanisms should be non-negotiable.
7. Pet care
As pet ownership rises across India, so has the demand for pet insurance. Much like health insurance for your family, pet insurance has become an essential for families that consider pets as a part of their families.
Pet insurance covers aspects like –
- Quality healthcare – Timely and professional medical treatment for your pet.
- Accident coverage – Support for costs arising from injuries, surgeries, or emergencies.
- Additional protection – Coverage may include third-party liability, theft, or loss of your pet.
Go Digit General Insurance and Bajaj Allianz General Insurance are some of the leading pet insurance providers in India.
Estate Continuity Planning: Insurance as a strategic wealth transfer tool
For India’s wealthy, estate planning is rarely straightforward. It’s a complex intersection of business interests, cross-border assets, family dynamics, and legacy aspirations. Yet amid this complexity, one of the most powerful and underutilised tools continues to be life insurance.
When thoughtfully structured, life insurance becomes a strategic asset. It offers liquidity when it’s needed most, bridges the gap between intention and execution in succession plans, and protects both family and enterprise.
Why it matters:
Unlike most assets that are illiquid, contested, or delayed through probate, life insurance delivers immediate, tax-efficient capital to the right hands. This becomes crucial in scenarios like:
- Business succession: Funding buy-sell agreements or ensuring the surviving family retains control and continuity.
- Equalisation among heirs: Especially when illiquid assets like real estate or private equity stakes can’t be easily divided.
- Estate tax coverage: As global assets and residency statuses evolve, future tax obligations may require instant liquidity.
Life insurance policies can evolve with the family. Whether it’s adjusting to regulatory changes, rebalancing asset holdings, or reassigning beneficiaries, they provide a rare combination of structure and flexibility.
Yet, despite these advantages, insurance remains one of the least discussed pillars of estate planning among India’s wealthy. Some dismiss it as a retail product. Others postpone decisions, believing wealth alone guarantees smooth succession.
But succession without a liquidity strategy is a risk—especially when assets span multiple jurisdictions, involve family-run businesses, or sit across diverse structures. That’s where insurance, and the advisory ecosystem around it, must step in.
The opportunity lies in customisation—offering purpose-built insurance solutions aligned to each family’s long-term vision, governance framework, and global footprint.
A recent Mint article posed a seemingly simple yet legally complex question: Who receives the insurance payout—the nominee or the legal heir? The answer isn’t always straightforward, and it’s precisely why insurance strategy must go hand-in-hand with robust legal structuring and estate counsel.
Why family offices must rethink insurance as a strategic lever
Family offices today are far more than investment managers. They are custodians of legacy, architects of intergenerational transfer, and enablers of long-term purpose. Yet, one crucial element remains conspicuously absent or underutilised in many family office mandates: insurance.
What’s needed is a more deliberate approach—where insurance is embedded into the family office’s strategic blueprint.
This means:
- Collaborating with legal, tax, and fiduciary partners to co-create insurance structures
- Reviewing existing coverages not just for cost, but for strategic alignment
- Incorporating insurance into scenario planning, succession modelling, and liquidity analysis
In summary: It’s time to rethink insurance
For the wealthy, insurance has long been relegated to the sidelines—seen as a basic financial product rather than a strategic tool. But in today’s landscape of complex estates, cross-border assets, and evolving family dynamics, that mindset is outdated—and risky.
The real opportunity lies in integration. Wealth creators need to look at insurance holistically—as an integral part of estate, succession, and risk planning. It must be woven thoughtfully into the broader wealth strategy—alongside legal, tax, and governance frameworks. That is when insurance becomes a powerful enabler of legacy, not just a contingency.
At its core, insurance is about preserving what’s been built and enabling what comes next. It’s time we recognise insurance as a strategic pillar of long-term wealth continuity.
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Disclaimer: The information provided herein is intended solely for educational purposes and should not be construed as solicitation, advertising, or providing any advice. All opinions, figures, estimates, and data are as of the date of this material. In this material, Dezerv Investments Private Limited (“Dezerv”) has utilized information developed in-house, publicly available information, and other data deemed to be reliable. Insurance needs vary based on individual financial situations, risk tolerance, and long-term goals. Before purchasing any insurance policy, it is recommended to consult with a qualified financial advisor or insurance professional. The information provided herein is not an endorsement of any specific insurance product or provider. While reasonable care has been taken to ensure the accuracy of the information, Dezerv does not warrant or guarantee its completeness or correctness. Accordingly, Dezerv, along with its directors, employees, or partners, shall not be held liable for any loss, damage, or liability arising from the use of this material.
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