Life insurance companies should be accountable for only one parameter, which is the expense management limit, HDFC Life Insurance Chairman Deepak Parekh has said. The companies should also be permitted to distribute health indemnity and National Pension Scheme, he added.
“Across the world, health indemnity and pension are part of life insurance ...Allowing distribution of NPS and health could help improve insurance reach across the country,” Parekh said in his address to the shareholders at the annual general meeting of HDFC Life Insurance on Monday.
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He further said that discussions are on with the Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority of India (IRDAI) on making expense management limit the main criteria. “This would be similar to the concept of TER or total expense ratio, which is followed by mutual funds as introduced by SEBI,” Parekh said.
The impact of the second wave of the pandemic has been milder and has been largely restricted to the first quarter of the fiscal, he said.
While the second wave impacted life insurance companies, it is expected that business will pick up in the second quarter with the easing of the lockdown restrictions.
Hybrid or phygital model
Noting that the pandemic has increased the awareness of people, including millennials to life insurance, Parekh said the industry has moved to a hybrid or phygital model for offering contactless services.