Covid-19 is impacting the insurance industry in multiple ways: from employee and business continuity issues to client service considerations to the financial outlook. SBI General Insurance is constantly evaluating operational and financial risks arising from the outbreak, and reacting to business continuity quickly and decisively.

However, the most immediate concern for the insurer is protecting the health and safety of employees and its distribution partners in the agent or broker community, says a top executive.

“In the current scenario, the key challenge is to balance employees’ health and safety and customer expectations,” says Amar Joshi, Chief Business Officer at SBI General Insurance. “Being part of the essential services segment and as a responsible player, there are huge expectations from us,” Joshi adds, “and fulfilling those mandates for our employees, customers, distributors, intermediaries, vendors and society at large is the foremost challenge.”

The pandemic’s impact on the economy changes on a near-daily basis, and the rapid dissemination of new data will continue to affect preparedness strategy and decisions. Terming Covid-19 a unique and unprecedented situation, the official says it is time to adjust to the evolving situation and respond to changes accordingly.

Business continuity plan

While maintaining internal and external communication channels is critical at this time, the insurer’s business continuity plan addresses communication with employees, policyholders, vendors, agents, and other third parties.

Speaking to BusinessLine about the company’s comprehensive business continuity plan to tackle the current chaotic scenario, Joshi says the company “formed the Emergency Management Team (EMT), comprising Senior Management and Leadership teams, soon after the coronavirus crisis. We have been closely monitoring the situation in liaison with all government authorities and accordingly all necessary advisory is being issued to employees and other stakeholders.”

SBI General Insurance’s EMT “has been taking necessary steps as per our crisis management plan, to reshape the business strategy suiting the evolving situation, and to maintain business continuity, to build resilience and prepare for recovery,” the official adds.

The business continuity plan also addresses infrastructure requirements in relation to potential business interruptions, for example, in terms of technology requirements to transition to a remote work environment.

Workplace shift

“Getting people to accept that ‘Work from Home’ is the new normal is a challenge,” admits Joshi. “The shift from conventional workplaces to the virtual one needs to happen seamlessly without any impact on core operations or customer service levels. This is a unique and unprecedented situation and we need to adjust to the evolving situation and respond to changes accordingly,” he adds.

In order to make ‘work from home’ pleasant and productive, the insurer’s EMT has provisioned for various engagement activities and matrices.

The insurer also has a Crisis Management and Communication Plan for Covid-19 in place, and has highlighted the necessary do’s and don’ts for all stakeholders.

As for renewals and whether any are taking place at this time, Joshi maintains, “There is a lot of thrust on renewals through the online mode and a large chunk of our renewals has now transitioned on to that mode. We are not facing any major challenges on the renewal front.”

However, the current situation has put a damper “on the scope of new business generation. But, our strong relationship quotient with our intermediaries has helped us leverage their strength of positive energy, converting it into incremental renewal achievements and customer connect,” adds Joshi.

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