Nuclear families got hit more severely than joint families due to COVID-19, finds a study by HDFC Life Insurance Company Ltd.

Private life insurer HDFC Life said on Monday, 16 August, that the COVID-19 pandemic has resulted in a drop of 4.8 points in 2021 Life Freedom Index (LFI) as compared to 2019.

Nuclear families have been the most impacted with an LFI drop of 10.5 points, while joint families have been stable, possibly due to a better support system in the time of crisis, finds the study.

Hence, the most significant drop is observed in the financial sufficiency and adequacy index.

The insurer said that LFI enables the measurement of 'financial freedom' of consumers across four key segments: Proud parents, wisdom investors, young aspirants and smart women.

It includes four sub-indices: Financial Awareness Index, Financial Planning Index, Financial Sufficiency and Adequacy Index, and Financial Liberty Index.

The latest 2021 LFI study was conducted along with NielsenIQ across 14 cities with 1,987 respondents.

According to HDFC Life, some of the key findings are:

• The impact of COVID-19 is more severe across metros in comparison to Tier 1 and Tier 2 cities.

• Almost 90 percent consumers have faced salary cuts or business losses to some extent, due to which the respondents are still concerned about Covid-19.

They also found that familiarity with term insurance increases by 11 points; for endowment and unit linked plans it is up by 10 points.

(This story was published from a syndicated feed. Only the headline and picture has been edited by FIT)