WEDDING INSURANCE - ACCEPTABILITY AND PROMOTIONAL STRATEGIES

In India, marriage is an important occasion and huge sums are spent for the pre-marriage and post-marriage rituals. Life-long savings are spent on the marriage ceremony.Average Indian saves and spends majority of his earnings on two things – owning a house and performing the marriage of his daughter(s). The former is optional but the latter is mandatory. The average middle-class Indian parents hoard their life-long savings to get their girl-children married-off without any hitch. Performance of marriages has been gradually transforming into a celebration with new customs, avenues and practices creeping in. This includes extension of celebrations to longer periods, destination weddings, providing live coverage of entire marriage ceremony etc. among other things. Any untoward incident resulting in cancellation of the event causes heavy financial damages to the performers. Insurance companies are offering wedding insurance scheme to hedge the public against such damages. Though the scheme carries many benefits, the response towards it is lukewarm. The present study is focused to analyze the reasons for the non-popularization of the scheme and suggests measures needed to make the wedding insurance scheme popular.