Page 40 - Insurance Times February 2021

PRESS RELEASE

"We wish to work with IRDIA to ensure

every policy designed fills the gap

between the actual insured loss & the

claim payment", says President, Insurance

Brokers Association of India

T he Insurance Brokers Association of India (IBAI), The fifth edition of the handbook shows a positive trend

when it comes to the overall claims settlement ratio which
the apex body of licensed insurance brokers, at
is an important indicator for policyholders to make an
its 17th Annual Insurance Brokers' Summit today,
emphasized the role of brokers as representatives
The association believes, the handbook will provide a
of their customers to help them get the right product at informed decision while entering into an insurance contract.
optimum cost, protecting the interest of the policyholders. comprehensive resource for policyholders to objectively
The theme for the summit is'Insurance Brokers - Innovate, compare one insurer with another on their claims settlement
Evolve, Thrive - Advancing penetration, Enhancing history.
Policyholders Interest". The objective of the Association is The claims settlement ratio for the entire industry remained
to educate the prospective and existing policyholders to be stagnant at 85.18%, analysis for the financial year ended
well informed before finalizing the respective insurance March 31, 2020, however the claim repudiation ratio has
contracts. This will protect the insured from poor claim improved from 7.47% to 4.09%. The Special Policy for
settlements from the insurer. COVID-19 i.e. COVID Rakshak and COVID Kavach, which was
introduced by all the insurers under the able guidance of
At the virtual Summit, Insurance Regulatory and
Development Authority of India (IRDAI) Chairman Dr. IRDAI got an overwhelming response and almost 70 lakhs
Subhash Chandra Khuntia released the 5th edition of the lives were covered under the scheme.
'IBAI General Insurance Claim Insights for Policyholders The purely data-driven analysis takes into account only the
Handbook'. The claims handbook covers the claims related number of claims and not the claim amounts. Claim
ratios pertaining to Fire, Marine, Motor, Health and amounts are not disclosed in insurers' publicly available data.
Miscellaneous lines of business in addition to the overall The association believes that if the corresponding claims
claims by all non-life insurance companies in India with the amount are also disclosed in line with most international
exception of a few specialized insurers. practices then policyholder will have much richer insights on
the claims performance of the insurance companies.
The handbook analyzes different parameters related to
claims from publicly available data for different insurers, Mr. Sumit Bohra, President, Insurance Brokers Association of
both public and private for the financial year ended March India (IBAI)said, "In the past decade, the Indian non-life
31, 2020. This compilation of the claims settlement data of insurance industry has really come into its own with over INR
various insurers is not available elsewhere and has been 1.89 lakh crore placed in premium during 2019-20, registering
collated from individual websites of each insurer. It is one a growth of 10.58 % on a year-on-year basis. For the industry
of the first such initiatives to look at insurance transactions to further thrive and get to the next level of growth, it is
in the country from a claims perspective, i.e., from the point imperative that insurance penetration grows to a level
of view of policyholders. Insurance brokers, as comparable to the more developed insurance markets."
representatives of policyholders' interests are uniquely "For the Insurance market to prosper, intermediaries play
positioned to undertake this initiative. a key role as they are directly associated with the customers
The Insurance Times, February 2021