HDFC Life chief seeks a bigger role for life insurers in healthcare

Life insurers in India should have a bigger role to play in creating an ecosystem in the healthcare sector so that they can be the “disruptor” rather than the “disruptor,” HDFC Life Chairman Deepak S Parekh said in the company’s annual report.

The year started on an uncertain note, the pandemic resulted in significant loss of life and is now challenging public health systems, working practices and social norms, Parekh said in his address to shareholders in the company’s 2020 annual report. 21.

“In the course of such an unprecedented crisis, we had to act quickly and make a transition to a virtual work model almost overnight.

“We were consistently ranked among the top two private companies in the private sector for new business awards, ending the year at Rs.20,107 billion with a market share of 21.5 percent,” he said.

HDFC Life Insurance Company did this amid an economic slowdown exacerbated by the pandemic, a liquidity crisis in the financial sector and an uncertain business environment with changing customer preferences, the chairman said.

The company’s strategy of having a diverse sales channel helped him in a year of disruptions in his personal networks.

“As we continue to invest to improve our technological capabilities, I think the time is right for the regulator (Irdai) to allow life insurers in India to evolve and be the disruptors rather than the disruptors,” said Parekh.

Irdai is the Insurance Supervision and Development Authority of India.

He said companies in Asia and more developed markets have created subsidiaries and orchestrated ecosystems to make insurance a more holistic proposition for customers.

As an example, he cited that one of Asia’s leading insurers has created a healthcare ecosystem that includes services such as online medical advice.

Elsewhere in Europe, a leading insurer has created a separate digital investment unit to evaluate and invest in financial technology startups, Parekh said in his address to shareholders.

HDFC Life added over 300 partners during the year, including over 50 in the emerging ecosystem. The life insurer is focused on expanding its reach by building a high quality agency channel with over 1 lakh financial advisors and leveraging bancassurance partnerships.

It also uses the online channel to meet the needs of the new generation of customers.

“We continue to work with the regulator to enable life insurers to distribute non-life financial products such as health insurance and NPS as we can leverage our distribution network to improve financial inclusion and deepen insurance penetration in India.” he said.

HDFC Life insured four million euros life with a new business value of 2,185 million rupees in the period 2020-21.

For the full 2020-21 fiscal year, the company reported net income of Rs.1,360 billion, while assets under management (AUM) grew 37 percent to over Rs.1.73 billion as of March 31, 2021.

The private sector insurer said it processed over 2.9 death claims during the year with payouts of more than Rs.3,000 billion over the 2020-21 period.

(Only the headline and image of this report may have been revised by Business Standard staff; the rest of the content is automatically generated from a syndicated feed.)

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source https://dailyhealthynews.ca/hdfc-life-chief-seeks-a-bigger-role-for-life-insurers-in-healthcare/