Estimating the Impact of Covid-19 in India from Life Insurance Claims

The data on the claims settled by Indian life insurers is used to estimate the impact of Covid-19 in India in 2020 and 2021. A conservative estimate of 0.56 million missing death registrations for 2020 is reported. An estimate of three million additional deaths in 2021 compared to pre-pandemic year 2019 is also reported. This estimate far exceeds the government’s official estimate of 0.481 million Covid-19 deaths during this period.

In this article, we present an estimate of the impact of Covid-19 as: (i) for 2020, deaths likely missing from death registrations data released by the government in May 2022; and (ii) for 2021, the estimated additional deaths in comparison to pre-pandemic 2019.¹