Page 56 - Insurance Times November 2022

The session chair Mr Suresh Mathur, Executive to which Mr Pankaj Tomar gave an interesting reply with a
Director,IRDAI, stated that "an organisation must establish philosophical touch to it, "One is the fact which is the
and maintain a sustainable value creation system to absolute truth, one is fiction just like movies, and one is
maintain industry leadership". subjective truth, now it is up to science and technology to
amalgamate all the three aspects and make a reality." He
Our First panellist, Mr Rajiv Sharan, Vice President & Senior
further iterated about accepting and incorporating ESG as
Economist Swiss Re, talked about the protection gap and
a way of life, firms have to modify their organisational
retention in the insurance industry, backed by statistical data.
cultures. Insurance companies had to charge different
The discussion continued with Mr Sanjay Dutta, Chief
amounts for ESG-compliant and non-compliant corporate
Underwriting, Reinsurance, Claims & Actuarial at ICICI
purchases.
Lombard General Insurance Co. Ltd., who said, "There is
Mr Amitabh Gupta explained about the nature of Indian
a necessity to build a product around a service experience".
Subcontinent where he said, "Indian subcontinent is very
Mr Anand Pejawar, Deputy Managing Director, SBI
prone to natural disasters due to its varied demography and
General Insurance Company Ltd., stated, "Insurance is
topography, over it, if we exploit it, it holds high risk, and
nothing else but trust; people buy insurance because they
that's where Insurers come in and save the day and do
believe us, they believe the organisation, and they believe
business as well".
insurance is the only product that will take care of their
As the discussion progressed, Mr Hersh Shah highlighted the
necessities and requirement."
social impacts of concentrating on ESG as one cannot ignore
Mr Joydeep Roy, Partner, PwC India FS Advisory Leader,
poverty, basic needs, etc., in a country like India. He said, "If
Global Health Insurance Practice Leader, joined the
you take ESG in a boardroom as a concept, it might not sell,
stimulating discussion and elaboratively discussed the
but if you take it as a risk, it will sell faster than anything else."
insurance industry's trust deficit. "The trust deficit has many
The discussion concluded with Mr Shrenik Baid speaking
layers in the insurance industry from insurer to distributor,
about ESG norms where he mentioned and cleared the air
insurer to regulator and customer to all. But this is not unique
regarding ESG modelling issues for ESG solutions and said,
in India; only the degree differs. Trust revolves around three
"Climate change is in itself a very difficult risk to commute
things -1. Transparency 2. Simplicity and the, most notably,
as results are predominantly catastrophic, the day we start
3. Predictability".
using technology to compute the same, it will be easier to
manufacture models."
Panel II
The second-panel discussion, with the theme Value Creation Panel III
through Environmental, Social and Governance -ESG, was
Prof. Manoj Kumar Pandey moderated the third-panel
moderated by Prof. Pratik Priyadarshi and chaired by Mr
discussion on the theme of "Value Creation through
Arun Agarwal, author, thought leader, and former founder
Customer Centricity". Mr K.K. Mishra, Former MD and CEO
CEO of Chola MS General Insurance. In his opening remarks,
of Tata AIG General Insurance Co. Ltd. chaired the session.
Mr Agarwal discussed the expanding significance and
Mr Mishra deliberated on many issues in his opening
interest of ESG investing on a global scale. He initiated the
remarks, but he felt customer empathy was a key to
discussion with an interesting fact, i.e., "By 2025, one-third
customer centricity. The need of the hour was training the
of the total AUM will be ESG investments which is touted
consumer and the workforce who interact with customers
to be 53 Trillion dollars".
across touchpoints.The panellists discussed diverse issues like
The theme centred on the ESG components in business risks customers not trusting the insurers, the role of data
and how insurers may help businesses reduce these risks. analytics in managing customer centricity, and the lack of
The presenters believed ESG compliance should be used as product differentiation in the insurance sector.
a risk management tool in the boardroom. Some thought
Mr K.V Dipu, Sr. President, Bajaj Allianz GIC, stressed the
enterprise sustainability was a branch of enterprise risk
overall setup of data which has been previously working in
management philosophy (ERM).
silos and discussed how, in the last few years, firms have
The highlight of the discussion was an interesting question become more digital, which has led to the availability of data
by Mr. Pratik Priyadarshi to Mr Pankaj Tomar about E Space in digital form helping firms to get rid of tedious paperwork
in ESG and what is being done on its technological aspects, and making it easy for tracking customer's footprint. He also
50 November 2022 The Insurance Times