Page 34 - Insurance Times March 2017 Sample

ration Re who was of the view that the confluence of the bettering others in providing cheaper insurance covers to the
alternative channels of insurance with the existing oneif insuring public and are barely generating enough resources
brought about with supporting regulations and controlled to support the kind of growth needed in the market. It is dif-
experimentation can revolutionise our journey towards the ficult to blame the players in the market. They are all fight-
goal of reaching universal inclusive insurance ing for the same cake and are looking for the low hanging
fruits. To achieve the long-term goals of inclusive insurance
The first panelist of the third session Mr. Anil Kumar Singh,
requires some real out of box thinking.
Chief Actuarial Officer, Birla Sunlife Insurance Co. Ltd relied
upon his vast experience in the field to suggest upon the To my mind the first and foremost is spending on insurance
Best Actuarial Practices for Cooperative Insurance for Achiev- awareness. This could be supported by the industry through
ing Inclusive Insurance. their CSR funds and the Govt. If larger numbers of people
The second panelist of the third session Dr. G. Mallikarjun, are protected through insurance mechanism it will reduce
General Manager, Reserve Bank of India and Ex-OSD, IRDAI dependency on government grants at the time of disasters.
expertly blended his experiences of working with both the We need to look at the options of creating low cost local
regulatory bodies to put forward succinct and practical sug- organizational structures which can cater to the needs of
gestions on thePossibility, Probability and Viability of Estab- insurance covers of people with similar profiles and similar
lishing Insurance Cooperative Society in India and its Regu- exposures. These structures can operate at a very low cost
latory aspect. model supplying primary insurance covers to their members
The Concluding address of the 4th Insurers' Conclave was and manage their accumulations and peak risks through
given by Mr. Arun Agarwal, Lloyds Insurers, India Represen- commercial insurance companies. It is with this proposition
tative, who summarised that inclusive insurance will happen that we must look at the system of cooperative insurance,
mutual insurance and Takaful.
when it is inclusive for all the stakeholders and that there is a
need to cater to insurance mutual and cooperatives to cater Such systems have evolved across the world and their expe-
to the under developed sections of the economy through in- rience is available for extracting useful earnings. All these
struments such as healthcare management. systems work on the principle of common objective and
common goals. The benefits are available to all members
Views of Sri Ashok Kumar Roy, former CMD. General In- and the surpluses are to the credit of all members.
surance Corporation of India and former CMD, Agricul- Time is ripe for the sectoral regulator to come out with
ture Insurance Company limited
supporting regulations and controlled experimentation be-
It is a very interesting topic for discussion from Indian per- fore scaling up such initiatives on all India level.
spective where general perception of Insurance as a tool to
transfer risk is at a nascent stage. Our ap-
proach to evaluation and management of risk
is at best casual.
In Indian Insurance space, in all 54 commer-
cial insurance companies are operational. Yet
our insurance penetration is way behind glo-
bal average. More over there is not much
progress in increasing these numbers, though
the industry has been continuously growing.
Looking at the large numbers of our population
and size of the country it is an expensive propo-
sition to expand the umbrella of suitable insur-
ance covers to the masses though our govern-
ment has own the way by launching a few pre-
underwritten products for masses. A lot more
need be done.
I am of the firm opinion that such an approach can revolu-
Our reliance on commercial surfers to do so is highly mis- tionize our journey towards the goal of reaching universal
placed. They are currently engaged in a fierce price war each inclusive insurance. 

34 The Insurance Times, March 2017

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