Insurance industry resilient to Covid impact

Mumbai: SN Rajeswari, Member (Distribution), IRDAI, said that the insurance industry was resilient during the tough Covid time. While non-life industry registered 12.78 per cent growth, the life insurance industry grew by 10 per cent during the period, she said today while addressing 17th Insurance Summit, which was held by National Insurance Academy.

She stated that the recent pandemic has resulted into people losing job, people moving to different place for livelihood and even children were forced to quit education to earn livelihood. She focused on the need for coming together of all stakeholders to provide insurance coverage to the people living at the bottom of the pyramid, where bread winning is the priority with simple and cost-efficient products.

Talking about the Health protection Gap, she said that Out of Pocket expenses (OOP), higher cost of treatments and Communicable and Lifestyle diseases are the major contributors. Technology can be a great enabler in quick settlement of claims, checking fraudulent claims and providing end to end solutions to the insurance customers.

She also informed of the initiative taken by the insurers in adopting villages. She also added that the Insurance Marketing Firms as a distribution channel are envisioned to provide insurance coverage to the people of the aspirational districts and reducing the protection gap.

She highlighted the importance of Institutions like National Insurance Academy, which has maintained the traditions of providing solutions and platform of discussion to all the challenges which have come in the way of the insurance industry.

G Srinivasan, Director, NIA, focussed on the need to address the Insurance Protection Gap and the urgent need to plug the increasing uninsured economic losses and losses of lives as they adversely affect the economic growth of the country. The intensity and frequency of natural calamities have increased manifold but still only 10 per cent of the total losses are covered. He informed that in our country, only five per cent of people have Home Insurance, 12 per cent of people have Health Insurance and only very few have Cyber Insurance cover.

A large number of three crore MSMEs are under-insured and 90 per cent of Indian working population are in the unorganised sector and therefore, Life Insurance, Health Insurance and Pension are very critical for them, he said.

The panel discussion on Addressing the Protection Gap: New Vistas in Strategies had Naveen Tahilyani, MD & CEO, Tata AIA Life Insurance, PC Kandpal, MD & CEO, SBI General Insurance, Mahesh Balasubramanian, MD & CEO, Kotak Life Insurance, Mayank Bathwal, CEO, Aditya Birla Health Insurance and Sanjay Kedia, Country Head and CEO, Marsh India Insurance Brokers for an intense discussion on the theme.

The presentations on the theme of Enlightening Distinctive Complexities of Protection Gap: A Specialized Perspective, which moderated by Rajesh Dalmia, Partner Advisory Services, EY and S Doss with Sanjay Datta, Chief Underwriting, Reinsurance & Claim, ICICI Lombard, Hitesh Kotak, CEO, Munich Re India, Madhusudan Acharyya, Professor, GCU London and Mini Ipe, MD, LIC of India had brought out many valuable insights.

P Venugopal, Chair Professor (Life Insurance) thanked the media for the event coverage and all the other delegates and participants.