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With India setting an ambitious goal of securing insurance for all by 2047, the opportunity for insurance in India is manifold. At the FE BFSI Insurance Summit 2024, Debasish Panda, chairman, IRDAI encouraged more companies to offer innovative insurance products, setting the stage for non-standard offerings in the insurance sector.
Two companies offering differentiated services or “breaking the mould” in the insurance sector are Narayana Health Insurance and PhonePe Insurance Broking Services. They highlighted their unique approaches to insurance at the summit.
“What is being offered in India at the moment is not really healthcare, it is sickness care,” says Ravi Vishwanath, CEO, Narayana One Health and who is also the Director, Narayana Health Insurance, adding that in the Indian context, “And then you have health insurance, which is not health insurance, it is hospitalisation insurance, which is largely transactional – consumers buy policies, some claim, some don’t claim. In the middle you have the consumer, who is looking for somebody who can partner with him. He wants to get well or stay healthy. Neither the hospital nor the insurance company today are doing this.”
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When consumers do not differentiate between retail formats, as long as their needs are met, why should any retail policy?
This is where an integrated product like the offering from Narayana Health brings the two sides together – one paying, one providing, taking away the conflict from the customer. Asked if such a model ensures stability in revenues from premium payments, Vishwanath disagrees: “Revenue from premiums has to be earned by ensuring the customer gets the right product and service.” The customer has to see value in the model. “It’s not something we take for granted, it’s something you have to earn every day,” he says.
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On the other hand, PhonePe, which is essentially a fintech player with over 550 million customers is now offering Insurance Broking Services to further the reach of insurance to the masses. Speaking about the opportunity that India offers, Vishal Gupta, CEO, PhonePe Insurance Broking Services says: “India has one of the best public digital infrastructures, the regulator has made the right changes and the government is creating the right kind of push.”
Insurance for all by 2047
The question is how one convinces the masses to buy insurance. Gupta reiterates that the approach has to be customer-first. Over the years, complexities of the legal insurance contracts and distribution challenges have weighed down the system and players need to now figure out ways to simplify the product offerings based on customer needs.
Gupta points out that the Bima Sugam protocol initiated by the government, which is a digital platform showcasing all insurers’ products for customers to pick from, will go a long way in democratising insurance. On the claims side, Gupta says technology can help speed up the process, by using AI to assess and help the customer track his claim easily. “We will soon be able to do a 10-minute, no-questions-asked claims disbursal,” he says.
Gupta and Vishwanath agree that the first challenge though is to win the trust of the customer and for this the industry has to be far-more service oriented. Insurance has to be a service-first model rather than a product-first model. “You should not be trying to sell a health or hospitalisation protection, but you should be selling a health solution that will keep you healthy,” says Gupta.
Using data for personalised insurance products
With the vast amount of data now available on consumers, insurance products can be personalised to customer needs. Vishwanath offers a different perspective. He says “While most insurance companies say their job is to pay claims, our job is to keep you out of hospital.”
Data can help achieve that as the healthcare knowledge gained from the hospital business can help create the right journey for the customer. “It is better to reward people for taking care of their health rather than punish people for not taking care of their health,” says Vishwanath. The future of insurance products will be based on hyper-personalisation gleaned from data on the customer, be it a motor-insurance product based on the person’s driving habits to a health product based on his compliance with health check ups. Clearly, the insurance industry will see a lot of innovation in the coming years.