Segar Sampathkumar

Director- Health, General Insurance Council

I have been blessed to be in the insurance industry, in one capacity or the other, for four decades, four years, and more.

Insurance, especially non-life insurance, is enchanting, enticing, and mystifying.  What makes insurance so charming and challenging? Why is this love for insurance so enduring?

RISK DECODED

Risk terrifies some and perplexes some.  Risk is definitely unsettling.  And in insurance, when we talk of Risk, we talk of those negative deviations from expected outcomes which result in financial losses.   Working in the insurance industry trains you to think in terms of probabilities, in terms of probable maximum losses, in terms of retentions and  of various other adverse scenarios. Such a clinical approach towards handling risks gives you confidence in dealing with them.  As an insurance professional, you also learn the difference between risk and uncertainty and get ready to face black swan events.

COMMON SENSE

Though at times the customers could be bewildered by the complex wordings of the insurance policy, each clause has a purpose rooted in common sense.  Centuries of professional practice has made insurance evolve  into a trustworthy mechanism that mitigates many a loss. Shorn of its complexities,  Insurance is a simple loss sharing arrangement which has a common sense basis for each of its stipulations. 

BUILT IN DYNAMISM

Insurance is a social mechanism.  Society and its mores keep changing.  New risks emerge.  Exposures change.  An Insurer should be abreast of  all these changes to  design new covers for new exposures,  and to exclude those Perils which are beyond their capacity. An Insurer cannot afford to be obsolete.  Dynamism is a built in feature of insurance.

LEARNING OPPORTUNITY

Insurance, especially in a nonlife, multiline environment, provides opportunities aplenty to learn.  An Insurance expert is an expert on many things, at least to the extent required by the exigencies of business. Law, Technology, Engineering, Accounting, even space research are domains the Insurer gets to know in the course of her work. The multiple stakeholders in the ecosystem bring new problems which demand new solutions.  Learning is not a choice, but a necessity.

DEVELOPING CONFIDENCE

After years in insurance, you know how random events inflict serious damage.   Your mind gets hardwired into thinking of possible variables, evaluating them in terms of loss probabilities, and also factoring in the odd occurrence that was unforeseen, for the simple reason that it had never occurred in the past.  Chance is a capricious mistress, and divining her ways gives one confidence in facing the future.

I LOVE INSURANCE

I could go on and on.  I have stated a few reasons for my love for insurance.  There are many more.  And the most important reason is, insurance never gets monotonous.  It cannot, for there could be a new risk lurking around the corner.   Keep your eyes open, and keep loving insurance.