Insurance sector: Need for ‘out-of-the-box’ thinking

The life insurance industry has been undergoing rapid changes in the last one decade and young professionals should go back to basics to understand them, according to Sudhin Roy Chowdhury, Member (Life), Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority.

There is need for out-of-the-box thinking in the industry, he said at the graduation ceremony of the sixth batch of the executive programme conducted by the Institute of Insurance and Risk Management.

“With bancassurance, agents, direct sales force and Web-aggregators, the distribution channel is constantly changing,’’ he said.

Sandeep Bakshi, Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer of ICICI Prudential Life Insurance Company, which sponsored the students for training at IIRM, said the demographic burden in the Indian economy has turned to demographic dividend in the last two decades.

“Today, financial services are part of a larger conglomerate because of the process of convergence. Discontinuous change and disruptions to economic process/businesses will continue in the days to come,” he said. The professionals should be open to take these changes in their stride, he added.

T. Narasimha Rao, Managing Director, IIRM, said the tie-up of the institute with ICICI Prudential was one of its kind.

“This is like finding domestic solutions to the domestic need of the industry,” he said, adding that it was better than finding international solutions for domestic problems.

The trust and confidence of the people are important in the financial services/insurance industry. “This has been lost and we are trying to get it back,” he added.

>naga.gunturi@thehindu.co.in

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