Chairman's messageEditor's connectInsurance in news Insurance Laws & policy Consumer AwarenessUpcoming EventsFAQGlobal HighlightsContact Us
Chairman's Message
Welcome to the fifth edition of the council newsletter. In this exciting edition, we bring you informative articles on how AI and data analytics will shape the future of underwriting in India, evolving customer expectations in health insurance, and an article explaining how Expenses of Management (EOM) capping is an excellent step by regulator. This edition also has articles highlighting the importance of travel and cyber insurance, an interview with a renowned marine insurance expert and much more. We hope you enjoy reading the newsletter and find it useful.
Tapan Singhel MD & CEO
Bajaj Allianz General Insurance Company Ltd.
Chairman, GI Council
Editor's Connect
The fifth edition of our newsletter is before you. The newsletter’s reach is expanding and one of the welcome signs of the popularity of this newsletter is that there are many contributions from the younger generation of insurance professionals on a wide spectrum of topics. We are impressed by their deep knowledge and enthusiasm and thank them for their insightful articles. However, much to our dismay we could not publish all of them for constraints of space. In future we would try to expand the newsletter format to give them more coverage.
I wish our readers all the best for the new financial year.
CR Vijayan
Acting Secretary General
General Insurance Council
Editorial Team
C.R. Vijayan
Sanjiv Singh
K.N. Venkataraman
Sharad Taware
Prerna Ramnani
Executive committee Members
Elected Members
Tapan Singhel (Chairman)
Mr Devesh Srivastava
Dr S Prakash
Ms. Neerja Kapur
IRDAI Nominated Members
Prof. Bejon Kumar Misra
Dr Nayan Shah
Mr Milind Bhatawadekar
Mrs Asha Nair
Mr K.C. Lokessh
Regular Invitees
Mr M.S. Sreedhar
Mr Krishnan Ramachandran
Mr Hitesh Kotak
Mrs Sucheta Gupta
Mr Sanjeev Srinivasan
Insurance in news
The Premium ‘Score Board’ April 2023
The financial year 2022-23 for the non-life industry has come to an end with an impressive growth of premium by 16.36% over previous year. The total premium of non-life industry stands at Rs 256920.22 crores i.e approximately $ 31 billion.
Expenses of Management (EOM) capping: a step in the right direction!
Insurance is critical to financially safeguard every citizen of the country, yet the penetration is less than ideal. One of the biggest problems that the Indian Insurance industry suffers from is that of perception. This is an industry that continues to pay claims and continues to bleed; the industry combined ratio stands at about 118%. Mr Mr. Tapan Singhel, MD & CEO, Bajaj Allianz General Insurance and Chairman of General Insurance Council reflects in this article on IRDAI’s new norms on EOM.
How AI, data analytics is going to shape future of Insurance underwriting in India
Increased internet penetration and mobile data usage has made the world around us increasingly digital. Consumers today are benefitting from the digital public infrastructure developed through the India stack, be it in making payments to local vendors using UPI, getting a SIM card or registering their home lease with authentication through Aadhar or having a consolidated view of their accounts and finances through the Account aggregator framework. Mr Bhargav Dasgupta MD &CEO ICICI Lombard shares his views on how technology is going to transform the insurance sector.
Health insurance industry and evolving consumer expectation
As we slowly reboot and stride back to normal, we should not forget how a pandemic like COVID-19 can wreak havoc across every walk of life – be it country, organisation or people. It has changed the perception and outlook towards most of the things we used to do, forcing us to relook at every aspect of our normal life. Mr Mayank Bathwal CEO Aditya Birla Health Insurance Company analyses in his article describes how COVID-19 has changed the perception about healthcare and health insurance industry.
Insurance Laws & policies
Genesis of Rules regarding Expenses of Management. In the second part of his series on EOM Mr S Skandan Consultant GI Council takes us through the evolution of journey for new norms for EOM
Sanctions and the Insurance IndustrySanctions can impact the General Insurance market in several ways. Firstly, sanctions can limit the ability of insurers to underwrite or provide coverage for certain types of risk. In her article on sanction Chinmyika Namdeo describes the impact of sanctions on general insurance industry.
Cyber Risks and the non-life Insurance industryInsurance firms are also vulnerable to cyber dangers. These dangers manifest in various ways, including hacking, data breaches, ransomware attacks, and phishing scams. These threats can have serious and costly implications, including damage to an insurer's brand, loss of consumer faith, and financial losses. Shovna Sethi of New India shares her concerns about cyber risks of the insurance industry.
ESG and principles of sustainable insuranceEnvironmental, Social and Governance is gaining lot of attention in the recent time. ESG principles are adopted by the companies to ensure their operations does not hamper environmental and social development and don’t go against corporate governance standards. Companies having good ESG score are attracting more investors. In her article Arti Mulik , Head of Underwriting and Product development, Universal Sompo General Insurance Company Ltd talks of the importance of sustainable insurance
Consumer Awareness
Empathy AI in the Insurance SectorAI has come a long way in the last few years, and conversational AI is one of the most exciting developments in the field. With the ability to simulate human conversation, conversational AI has the potential to revolutionise customer service, education, healthcare, and much more. But there is one area where conversational AI can genuinely shine: empathy. Mr. K V Dipu - Senior President & Head - Operations & Customer Service, Bajaj Allianz General Insurance Co. Ltd. shares his views on a how use of AI can make insurance conversation more compassionate.
Importance of buying a Travel Insurance when travelling abroadTraveling to a foreign land is one of its kind experience; one gets to explore new cultures, cuisines, places, and much more. Traveling gives a new perspective, adds new elements to one’s personality, and helps attain meaningful lessons. Traveling abroad requires meticulous planning right from visa to tickets, from accommodation to itinerary, etc. Mr. Aditya Sharma, Chief Distribution Officer – Retail Sales, Bajaj Allianz General Insurance, dwells in detail on importance of travel insurance.
Cyber risk cover is a necessityCyber risk has consistently featured amongst the top three risks in line with the global trends. Cyber-attacks in India rose by around 200% in 2020, to 1,158,208 from 394,499 in 2019, according to Indian Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT-In) data. Kushagra Jajoo of Magma HDI General Insurance Company Limited explains the risks associated by cyber-attacks
Interview with KS Vishwanath
Mr KS Vishwanath a renowned international marine insurance expert and author of a widely acclaimed book ‘Insuring Cargoes’ published by London market shares his views in a candid interview with editor of the newsletter.Read More>>>
Global Highlights
IUMI Spring Meeting takes place in Hamburg after four years.Attending IUMI’s spring session was a wonderful experience. A superb workshop, with lots of important maritime and global marine insurance issues were discussed and deliberated during the committee discussions amongst the members. Mr Bharat Virmani Member, IUMI Legal and Liability Committee & Vertical Head Marine Underwriting, Bajaj Allianz General Insurance Company shares his experience during the IUMI spring meeting. 
Launch of Marine Cargo Master Class in London The much-awaited IUMI Master class in Cargo took place in London between 20-24 March 2023. The master class set in an informal seating arrangement, had 20 students representing all geographies around the world. Since it was an advanced course many of the senior underwriters from the developed market had also signed up for it. Mr Sanjiv Singh, Chair, Education Forum and Ms Hendrike Kuhl Policy Director attended the launch of the masterclass.
The Global Federation of Insurance Associations (GFIA) has published a report insurers can continue their role as major long-term investors in the economy, it is vital that policymakers set capital requirements for insurers’ investments at the right level.If those requirements are too high, it could become too expensive for insurers to continue making the long-term investments that underpin much of the global economy.
Sinking UK – last summer’s record-breaking heatwave leads to surge in insurance payouts for subsidence Insurers expect to pay £219 million in subsidence claims made in 2022, many of which were caused by last summer's record-breaking high temperatures. This is the highest expected insurance subsidence bill since 2006. Last summer’s heatwave led to 18,000 subsidence claims- the equivalent of one new claim every 15 minutes during the second half of last year.
Insurers' balance sheets become more transparent and comparable. Since the beginning of this year, exchange-listed companies have been applying the new international accounting standard IFRS 17. "The switch has been made. With IFRS 17, capital market-oriented insurers are placing their accounting on a globally uniform basis. Balance sheets will be more up to date, more transparent and more comparable", said GDV Chief Executive Officer Jörg Asmussen. 
General Insurance Council, 5th Floor, National Insurance Building, 14, Jamshedji Tata Road, Churchgate, Mumbai-400020, Maharashtra, India, gicouncil@gicouncil.in
https://www.gicouncil.in/
Disclaimer : Our newsletter endeavors to compile insurance information from various sources in the public domain. In respect of 3rd party articles/news items etc. reproduced, the GI Council accepts no responsibility for the accuracy/authenticity and completeness nor can be seen as endorsing the views/opinions expressed therein.
