Page 49 - Insurance Times May 2019

of insurance. The close family bonding in a way assures the Business Programme of BIMTECH, while moderating the
support base. He was very supportive of the various panel discussion, explained the concept of health protection
government initiatives such as "Jan Dhan Yojana" to make gap and how it is different from other protection gaps . Ms
insurance available to the masses. Malti Jaswal shot back to a specific query whether Modicare
would increase health insurance penetration in India by
Mr. Trevor Bull talked about the lack of awareness & gave
stating that Government of India in one sweep covered 50
emphasis on introducing financial awareness at school level
crore beneficiaries. This aggregation is of unimaginable scale
itself. He also talked about the use of public-private model
which shows the very serious intent of the government. In
to take care of the people working in unorganized sector.
a short span of time, 3 crore people got their e card (which
Ms. Kalpana Sampat talked about the growing use of digital is not mandatory) but shows the awareness of the people
technology & the need of the industry to capitalize on it. for this scheme. Dr. Nishant Jain explained in details the
She also appreciated the initiatives of companies using success of Thailand UHC model. He felt that political will
digital / social platforms to spread the awareness.
was the main reason behind the success of UHC in Thailand.
Mr. Kapil Mehta gave emphasis on promoting term "The supply side reforms -particularly payment reforms
assurance kind of plan to take care of the protection gap contributed significantly in Thailand model. They have three
issue. He wished the increase in intermediation fee for such schemes and they were allowed to run under one umbrella
plans so as to make it viable for the intermediaries to push without being merged. India can take a cue from this"
such risk plans. He expressed satisfaction over the new added Dr. Jain. Dr. Kholoud Elshafie spoke about the Long
generation approach about risk related insurance product. Term Care schemes in vogue in Egypt and how it was adding
On probing about the role of micro-insurance & its status to bridge the protection gap,
in Bangladesh, Dr. Hossain shared that the Regulator in Mr. Praveen Yadav felt that the enrolment in most schemes
Bangladesh is working on relevant regulation & they see a suffered primarily because of the involvement of private
great potential in micro-insurance as the micro credit / agencies. The enrolment was very high in Aarogysri and the
finance infrastructure is very strong there. scheme in Assam because government agencies were
involved. Prof. Chattoraj posed many probing questions to
Dr. Shelina Afroza summarized the proceeding & wished
the speakers and kept the audience engaged in the panel
that the collective effort of the insurance companies take
care of the gap. The session which lasted for more than 90 discussion.
minutes culminated in a very hectic Q&A segment. The last session of the day was on "InsureTech: Have They
The second panel discussion of the day was on "Health Been Up To the Challenge?" This session was chaired by Dr.
Insurance Protection -An opportunity to Expand" was Rakesh Agarwal, Editor, The Insurance Times and Secretary
chaired by Mr. Warendra Sinha, MD and CEO, MD & CEO General, Risk Management Association of India. The
of IFFCO Tokio General Insurance Company Limited. The moderator for the session was Prof. K. K. Krishnan of PGDM-
other speakers forming the powerful panel were Dr. Nishant IBM BIMTECH.
Jain, Programme Director, Indo-German Social Security The panellists were Mr. Shadi J. H. Saadeh, General
Programme at GIZ (German International Cooperation) ,Ms. Manager, ESKADENIA Software, UAE, Mr. Inderjeet Sen, CEO,
Malti Jaswal, Senior Consultant, World bank Group, Dr. Krish Mark Pvt. Ltd., Mr. Vijay Raghunathan, Head -
Kholoud Elshafie, Medical Insurance Consultant, Suez Canal Insurance Consulting and Transformation, Larsen & Toubro
Life Insurance, Executive Director, Insurance Institute of Infotech Ltd. and Mr. Ashustoh Shrotriya, Senior VP,
Egypt and Mr. Praveen Yadav, COO, MD India Healthcare Religare.
Services. In his opening remark, Mr. Warendra Sinha Dr. Agarwal gave an overall view of the state of the industry,
mentioned that the general insurance business profile had IT in insurance, changing trends in customer perception and
undergone a sea change. There was a time when fire,
the emergence of disruptive technologies playing a role in
engineering and marine formed the bulk of GI business -
the fintech area, which also included insurance.
today it is less than 10%. Motor and Health are the two
Prof. K. K. Krishnan, in his brief introduction to the topic
major drivers of GI business today in India. The Modicare
characterized the Insurtech impact on the industry as
along with other schemes covers around 50% population -
uberization of insurance forced by the shift in industry focus
the rest 50% needs to be covered. Even today the protection
gap is huge, and thus, throws up great opportunity in days from product to being customer centric.
to come. Prof( Dr). Abhijit Chattoraj, Chairperson - Insurance The panel started by looking at the tech environment.

The Insurance Times, May 2019 49