Pune:
M. R. Kumar, chairman,Life Insurance Corporation(LIC), has suggested two keyways to increase the life insurance penetration in the country: first the banks need to sell aggressively to their existing customers and the insurance companies need to go extensively to recruit agents.
“As far as products are concerned there are many products present in the market but increasing the size of the distribution is paramount to life insurance penetration to coverup the protection gap issues,'' he said while addressing the 21st Annual C D Deshmukh Memorial Seminar on "Life Insurance industry in a US$ 5 Trillion Indian economy” organised by National Insurance Academy,Pune, on Friday.
India is hugely uninsured. Swiss Re is one of the companies that uses mortality protection gap and India stands at 92.9 per cent which is highest in terms of protection gap in Asia Pacific region. India is under-developed in terms of life insurance and it is necessary to address the natural issues, he explained.
Any growth in life insurance will contribute to the economy of India. In the long-term India will remain to be a leading economy in terms of growth and life insurance is said to contribute immensely in the economy and grow furthermore, added Kumar.
He said that India is the fastest growing economy standing in the 5th position and in order to reach the $5 trillion economy India must double its economic growth, observed the LIC chief.
P.H.Kutumbe,member, IRDAI (Finance & Investment) in his deliberations mentioned that the insurance industry is a growing industry with a long-term capital, transparency and customer services. He also discussed about the resource mobilisation and its infrastructural strength of Rs4.5 trillion.
The life industry is growing at a rate of 13 per cent, when other industries are struggling. He suggested that corporate governance training programmes in insurance industry is to be conducted more often.
K Ganesh, member IRDAI (Life) said as of 31st March 2019 there are 33 crore inforce policies and 2.4 trillion claims have been settled.
According to him the major challenge in the industry is to convince people to take life insurance. According to him, schemes like Jan-dhanYojana, PMJJY, PMSBY and Jan Arogya scheme have been instrumental in increasing customer protection.
G. Srinivasan,director NIA said that the life Insurance sector has provided investments in key sectors which amounts to around Rs 35 lakh crores of investment.
“It has also been providing social security and we very confident that life insurance will continue to play its role in the industry,'' he said.