By Balachander Sekhar
Growing disposable income, consistent growth in the economy, technology & innovations and regulatory support is driving the insurance adoptions, across the country. The life insurance category has been showing strong growth in the first quarter of FY25, with first-year premiums surging by 22.91% YoY. Similarly, in the 11 months leading up to Feb 2024, health insurance premium achieved a 20% rise from 2023. At the current rate of growth, India is on track to become one of the fastest growing insurance markets, amongst all the other G 20 countries. And one of the most effective ways for the insurance sector to advance, is through strategic partnerships and collaborations.
The four key pillars which are significant for the growth of insurance penetration today are- simplified product designs, personalized offerings, seamless consumer journeys and transparency in information. Traditional insurance companies can touch upon one or two of these pillars in the consumer journey independently, often resulting in longer turnaround time. But, if the insurance companies collaborate with Insurtech based solutions providers, the entire insurance journey can become easier, faster and digitized for the consumers. The benefits of collaborations are penetrating into other domains of insurance too like underwriting, claims management, risk management, which can provide improved products and services to consumers.
If we look into the health insurance category, the National Health Stack is set to improve the insurance adoption in the country. And if InsurTechs collaborate with insurance companies, it could create a powerful combination for growth and innovation. Many InsurTech companies are empowering insurers to provide personalized healthcare solutions, which are optimizing claim costs. These InsurTech companies are digitally collecting patients’ history, categorising patients as per risks and providing suitable interventions across key areas such as diet, exercise and medications. Many consumers affiliated with such insurance companies, are experiencing positive health outcomes; the hospitalization rates have dropped and there are reduced claim settlements.
Few InsurTech companies like Artivatic.AI is helping insurance companies with rapid claim settlements. While the industry is still struggling with long claim settlement cycles, Artivatic.AI is helping its insurance partner companies settle claims within 20-30 minutes. By using advanced technologies and dynamic underwriting, such companies’ streamlined value chain is drastically accelerating processes, which is leading to reduced turnaround times for claim settlements. Using such technologies, consumers can achieve more than 90% reduction in claim settlement hours.
InsurTechs are also helping consumers with enhanced user experience, by enabling the companies offer complete digitized solution. These InsurTech companies are leveraging data aggregation to develop detailed consumer profiles and offering digital platforms to simplify processes like document management, risk verification. These processes are increasingly leading to savings by 2x-3x and increasing the operational efficiency of the companies by more than 80%. Many InsurTech companies are also enabling insurers, offer entire control to the consumers around their consumer journey. From exploring multiple policies, to calculating coverage needs and premiums, to receiving quotes and seeking support; these technologies are increasingly making insurance democratized, inclusive and accessible to consumers.
While the benefits mentioned above are noteworthy, there are many more comprehensive solutions, which are being developed through such collaborations. Advanced technology, innovations, fast-tracked processes, transparency will be possible when more and more such collaborations take place in future. And at the centre of this evolution, stands the consumers who will benefit the most, leading to more insurance penetration in the country.
(The author is Co-founder of RenewBuy, an online insurance platform. Views expressed are personal and do not reflect the official position or policy of Outlook Media Group and/or its employees. The article is for information purpose only; please consult your financial planner/s before investing.)
