The Countrywide lock down imposed by govt. of India from 24th of March 2020 to contain the Covid -19 infection continued till the end of 31st May ,2020. Thereafter, from June onwards the process of unlock was done in phased manner. The 69 days of complete lock down of the country has been good as well as bad for the Public at Large. It was bad because it ruined the economy. The GDP has drastically shrunk to 23.9 %, making the lives of the people difficult. Almost all Manufacturing processes as well as Commercial activities came to a complete Halt. On the other hand, it has saved thousands of precious lives and injuries to lot more people in road accidents. We all knows that Loss of life is also the economic loss to the country.
As per the report on Road accidents for first six months of this calendar year, shared by Govt. of India in Parliament, the number of Road accidents in the country during the aforesaid period was 1,60,000 which is 35% less than average number of accidents reported during the corresponding period of last 6 years. As per aforesaid report, on an average, 2, 48,000 road accidents cases were reported during the period of January to June each year from 2014 to 2019.The number of persons who died due to road accidents were also reduced to 35%.
The Parliament was informed that this is an obvious result of the nationwide lockdown of 69 days imposed in March to contain the spread of Covid -19 infection.
It was observed that during 69 days Nationwide lockdown the traffic and mobility in the month of April and May was reduced to the minimal. Even in June, some states continued with the local lockdown. Besides, most of the business / Commercial establishments, offices, mercantile houses and other activities also came to stand still.
On analyzing the data for the first six months, it has been found that in terms of fatalities in road accidents, 56,288 people died during first six months this year as compared to 79,678 during the same period of last year, that is a drop of about 30%. Moreover, the data for the period of April –June, 2020 period, the number of fatalities dropped to 51% compared to same period of previous year (2019). In totality, the number of accidents reported from April to June, 2020 were 50336 against 1, 12,215 in the corresponding of last year; a sharp decrease of 55%.
However, the flip side of the story is not good which shows that the severity of accident was significantly increased during this period. While the number of persons killed out of every 100 road accidents last year was 39, it has increased to 46 during this period.
So far as ‘Own Damage Claims’ are concerned, they have also shown the declining trend during this Lockdown.
The reason, minimal traffic due to restricted movement which, in turn, has culminated into lesser number of accidents or lesser number of claims. Though, exact data is not available at this time but the experts feel that there may be at least 10% decline in number of claims which, in turn, is supposed to improve the loss ratio in the motor segment, but the experts have divergent opinion in this regard which also have a logic behind it.
As apprehended, it is learnt that on returning of the road traffic to normalcy across the country after a complete nationwide lock down, motor insurance claims have surged in May and June. However, the frequency of claims was 50-60 % of the pre-Covid times. In case of some insurers, the surge in cases has been reported upt o 70-80%
To conclude we can safely say that in motor line of Business, the TP claims are not reported immediately. So, whether the third-party claims will go down or not, can be seen in future. However, as on date, the data available for TP is favorable. Similarly, in case of OD claims, facts mentioned herein above speaks loud and clear that the things are not that gloomy as appeared during lock down.