Page 20 - The Insurance Times May 2021

3rd Prize Winner : Technical Paper Writing Contest 2020 Cover Story

INSURETECH: A

TOOL FOR

INSURANCE

PENETRATION

Abstract
Technology is making an impact in almost every industry including insurance. The use of information technology has a
huge impact on the Indian insurance industry and the unthinkable has become doable now. Insurance industry has
always been very conservative to adapt technology and insurance is one of the least innovative areas for consumer's
experience, but things have definitely changed in the last few years, especially in India. Around 10 years back, we were
not even able to purchase insurance online, but today technology has become a major industry force. This transformation
is giving huge advantages to the insured in terms of providing competitive premium and easy claim settlements.
Insuretech no doubt is the next billion-dollar opportunity for insurers operating in India.
Technology has imposed a transformative effect on the insurance sector. Despite the fact that the general insurance
business in India has been growing at a healthy rate of over 14 per cent from the last few years but its penetration
level is just less than 1 per cent of India's GDP. India continues to be a grossly underpenetrated market with a non-life
penetration at one-third of the global average. In the financial year 2018-2019, gross direct premiums of non-life insurers
reached Rs. 1.69 trillion (US$ 24.14 billion), showing a year-on-year growth rate of around 14%, but a clear issue of
insurance penetration can be seen despite recent growth numbers. This is also true that from the last few years,
Insuretech has provided new ways of selling insurance and has become a vital tool for increasing insurance penetration.
Digitization is driving an unprecedented shift toward lower cost structures and greater agility in the insurance industry.
Technology is ruling the insurance industry and many competitors have started working on "InsurTech" by exploring
different ways to adopt technology, which is cost-effective, and improve the efficiency of the company.
Insuretech has started making insurance better, faster, simpler, cheaper, and more reliable through cloud-based insurance
systems, artificial intelligence, and blockchain technology and with the internet of things, sensors feeding data into
real-time risk management systems, and predictive claims models.

In this article, you will be able to know, how insuretech is helping in increasing insurance penetration through building
new products and services and how insuretech has made
About the author insurance more and easily reachable to all sections of
society. The broad objective of this article is to identify
Shashi Kant Dahuja the new and evolving technology that enhances the
Chief Underwriting Officer performance of the company, helps in fraud detection
FIII, ACII, Chartered Insurer
and effective client servicing.
Shriram General Insurance Co. Ltd.

20 The Insurance Times, May 2021