Page 33 - Insurance Times December 2019
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We have designed many new programmes to take care of
the changing needs of the industry. We trained about 6,500 We provide lot of soft skills and
insurance executives last year and this number is increasing. prepare the students to face the
We are training insurance executives from other countries
as well who consider NIA as a centre of excellence in challenges of the insurance
insurance learning. There is also a demand from Middle
East to set up a branch of NIA to give high quality training industry which is growing and
to insurance executives.
facing lot of changes.
According to you what should be the areas which
may be of high demand in coming future?
prepare the students to face the challenges of the
The news areas where there is need for training include
insurance industry which is growing and facing lot of
Digital transformation, Risk Management, data Analytics,
fraud Analytics, Actuarial science, corporate governance. changes. Our students are prepared to take over the roles
We have been focusing a lot-on these areas. of industry leaders who would run their companies
efficiently and professionally. The unique faculty
composition and environment in the campus ensures huge
The Insurance Industry is becoming very
connect to the real corporate world and the students are
competitive. The students must gear up to face
well prepared to face the challenges.
new challenges to handle the work pressure as
well as to excel in performance. Do you integrate Any other thing you would like to add?
these aspects in your programmes to help the The world of insurance is witnessing fascinating changes
students to cope up with these challenges? and we need huge insurance talent. There is need for many
Our course is designed to provide management skills as well quality institutions to meet the needs of the growing
as insurance expertise. We provide lot of soft skills and insurance sector. Key word is quality. T
The opportunity cost of state health insurance schemes
Large-scale government-sponsored health insurance schemes (GSHIs) such as Ayushman Bharat are often heralded
as the best way to address public health issues. But are they fiscally feasible and optimal for improving health care in
India? A new National Institute of Public Finance and Policy paper by Mita Choudhury and others shows how basic
healthcare can suffer following the introduction of GSHIs, especially in fiscally constrained situations.
In their analysis, they examine health insurance schemes implemented by Andhra Pradesh (including Telangana),
Karnataka and Tamil Nadu between 2004-2017. They find that the fiscal burden was the highest in Andhra Pradesh
with over 25% of total health spending directed towards the insurance scheme, compared to 10-13% in Tamil Nadu
and 5% in Karnataka. The higher fiscal burden in Andhra Pradesh is attributed to the scale of the scheme which covered
1,000 procedures and about 85% of the population. In all three states, insurance schemes were gradually expanded
from just covering the poor to other sections of the population.
They show that spending on other important aspects of public health such as primary and secondary healthcare (which
includes rural healthcare centres) fell. This, in turn, could result in more hospitalizations in the long run which can
increase the cost of insurance schemes.
The authors also find that a higher budget on insurance does not necessarily translate to effectiveness. In Andhra
Pradesh, only 10% of hospitalizations were covered by the insurance scheme while in Tamil Nadu, the figure was
slightly higher (16%). One factor that worked in favour of Tamil Nadu was its strong public health system. As a result,
most insurance claims came from public hospitals and the state could negotiate lower prices for health procedures in
private hospitals. (Source: Livemint)
The Insurance Times, December 2019 33