Mumbai:
TS Vijayan, chairman, IRDAI has said the Indian lfe insurance industry has mobilised Rs 6 lakh crore premium and its assets have touched Rs 35 lakh crore in 2017.
The Indian life insurance industry recorded a premium income of Rs 418476.62 crore during 2016-17 as
against Rs 366943.23 crore in the previous financial year, registering a growth of 14.04 percent (11.84 percent growth in previous year).
Vijayan who is retiring in February 2018 considers improving insurance penetration as an unfinished agenda in his tenure. Speaking to reporters on the sidelines of the two-day Annual Global Conference of Actuaries(GCA) on Tuesday in Mumbai, Vijayan said that while penetration is improving, they is a lot of room for improvement.
“Considering there is less than 3 per cent penetration in India and almost 7 per cent globally, it indicates a huge potential for Insurance in the coming years.We have seen insurance penetration go up, especially with schemes like Fasal Bima Yojana, Jeevan Jyoti Bima Yojana and Suraksha Bima Yojana. But it is still very low, especially in the general insurance sector and still has a lot of area to cover,” he said.
Talking about the other upcoming challenges for the industry, Vijayan pointed out that it would be the movement of the insurance sector into the new International Financial Reporting Standard (IFRS) standards. Apart from this, he said that technology could bring about sweeping changes to the industry and that they should be equipped to deal with it.
“Some discussions were going on consolidation, but no such proposal has been taken as yet. Few licenses are pending with us in non life, health and reinsurance. But I can’t tell you the.number,’’ he said..
Speaking on the conference, GCA Organizing Group Chairperson, Kailash Mittal said, “The Indian insurance market is slowly reaching an excellent balance between open market competition and regulatory control. This move has helped equip the actuarial sector in India to implement practical approach to systems like product design and pricing, sensible policyholder protection rules, minimum training and licensing requirement for agents, maximum commission levels, valuation regulations and minimum solvency margins etc.”
Among the key points discussed at the two-day conference are: Digital transformation of Insurance Experience, Strategy and analytics in Insurance