02 Mar 2015|Noida | Amity Campus
“Companies need to reinvent new policies in Insurance Sector to serve the population of India” suggests Mr. S.B. Mathur, Member, IRDA during two day seminar at Amity University
To enlighten the students regarding the scenario of Insurance Sector, Amity School Of Insurance, Banking and Actuarial Science (ASIBAS) organized a seminar on “Is it time for Insurance Industry to Reinvent?” at Amity Campus, Sector 125, Noida.
The objective of the seminar was to highlight the challenges insurers are facing and how the insurance industry can more effectively manage their operations, e risk and grow.
The seminar was inaugurated by Mr. S.B. Mathur, Member, IRDA Chief Guest of the occasion ; Mr. Satyan Jambunathan, Appointed Actuary & Executive Vice President, ICICI Prudential Life Ins. Co.; Mr. Niraj Kumar, General Manager, Oriental Insurance Co. and Prof. R.R. Grover, Advisor, ASIBAS.
Welcoming the guests, Prof.R R Grover said that as a result globalization, deregulation and other issues, the insurance industry has gone through a tremendous transformation over the past decade. He mentioned that Insurance companies has a favorable point with 125 crore population as potential customers but there are not substantial amount of expert agents to cover them with insurance. Prof. Grover raised the concern that in the age of technology, the society is fast moving towards cashless policy, therefore there is a need of human intervention to advice on the policy. He highlighted that in the present scenario, large number of policies are sold on net; hence, the role of the agent is required to be reviewed. Citing the findings by a survey, Prof. Grover added that 72% of agents are concentrated in 10 states in India with highest deputed in Uttar Pradesh which confirms the non-uniformity in dispersal of agents. He further recommended that there is a need to revamp the agency recruitment system by hiring people who have an aptitude to sell the product. He also suggested that Insurance Companies should include educational institutions during the training and recruitment process for the better human resource development in the industry.
Presenting an overview of Insurance Industry, Mr. S B Mathur, IRDA said that the insurance industry of India consists of 52 insurance companies of which 24 are in life insurance business and 28 are non-life insurers. Sharing his views on two areas of life insurance, he said that the companies need to include the product role and offer a wide range of variety of products to cater the population. “The main criticism faced by LIC that it offers only traditional products to vast Indian populace which lacked transparency in terms of how are the saving being accumulated and used, how much it will be added etc. Secondly,health insurance policies need to be developed along with pension policies.Hence, these are the areas where the industry is required to reinvent by offering wide range of product to the huge population.” He opined
Addressing the gathering, Mr. Satyan Jambunathan, ICICI shared his views on the understanding the needs of two important stakeholders of the industry, who are, the customer and the regulator. He emphasized that the industry needs to understand the perspective of the customer and comprehend their expectations. Mr. Jambunathan further added that the insurance companies should address the outlook of the customers regarding the promise they make during the filing of insurance and help customers to invest more in their interest, thereby automatically increasing the turnover of the industry.
During the seminar, Mr. Ritesh Kumar,CEO & MD, HDFC Ergo General Insurance Co. was presented with Golden Leadership Award for his unparallel contribution in customer service.
During the seminar, more than 100 Research papers were received from researchers across the country.