The life industry with 24 players continues to expand with most companies reporting growth in premium income in the first half of the current financial year. Two CEOs from the market speak about the positive impact from the new Insurance Bill and the implementation of various government mass insurance schemes, as well as the major challenges faced by the sector today.
A favourable regulatory environment, increasing consumer awareness about the benefits of insurance and increased spending by the government on infrastructure projects have resulted in growth in the Indian non-life insurance sector in 2015 and the momentum is expected to be carried forward in 2016. We speak to a few industry leaders to get their perspective of the market and the challenges in taking insurance to the masses.
Buy Now
Penetration rate is still low when compared to global benchmarks. Mr Sanath Kumar of GIC Re says insurers need to offer simple and easy to understand products which are also simple to administer and where claims are easy to make. The guiding principle should be India needs insurance, Indian people need insurance.
Buy Now
Mr P C James of National Insurance Academy (NIA) shares the various lessons the Indian insurance industry must learn from the past such as not to depend on compulsion insurance, the disaster of tariffs and the elimination of intermediaries among others.
Buy Now
Mr YRC Bharadwaj of BKIC-Bahrain presents the rate of innovation in the general insurance industry since IRDAI introduced de-tariffication in 2007.
Buy Now
After deliberation among stakeholders for almost a decade, the Insurance Laws (Amendment) Act, 2015 (Act) finally received legislative consent in March 2015. The Act permitted what successive governments had promised, Indian insurance companies could now have direct and indirect foreign holding of up to 49%.