M Saraswathy
Moneycontrol News
Private general insurer Liberty Videocon General Insurance, which started operations in 2013, is hoping to introduce new products that will be use -based.
In an interview to Moneycontrol, Roopam Asthana, Chief Executive Officer of Liberty Videocon General Insurance, talks about their growth plans.
Excerpts:
How has the financial year 2017 been for the company?
Distribution continues to be the key in India and it is still an intermediate market. There is a window of opportunity opened up by regulation in banks. We are hoping to close FY17 with Rs 550 crore of premium.
If you take out crop insurance from industry - we are not participating in it till now - we are the fastest growing insurer. We have applied for empanelment in the crop insurance scheme. We are looking to grow two to three times the market.
You had experimented with telematics-based insurance earlier. But why did it not take off?
Motor insurance pricing looking at the driving behaviour is what we are looking at. Our pilots in telematics did not work for us since the devices were not advanced and we were early. Now it has become plug-and-play. We are looking at this concept and at RFID-based tags that will be connected to the smartphone.
Now, we are looking at the next avatar of that. In this, collaboration is going to be crucial. Unless you get a substantial number of cars covered, the data will not be adequate to impact the premium.
Could there be other products for the motor segment as well?
Car manufacturers are selling more cars to mobility operators than retail customers. The concept of use-based insurance is probably going to be more relevant to drivers of Uber or Ola. We are looking at what this trend means for insurance.
Is health and wellness an area where you with launch products and services?
We are looking at offering wellness combined with technology. The question is what would excite the customer. A plain insurance application or product will not excite them.
In health insurance, the focus is moving from treatment to prevention. Here, the idea is to guide you through the journey and we are working with vendors on this.
What is your product mix now?
We have 70 percent motor and 30 percent non-motor. We want to take it to 65:35. In the health space, we are increasing our retail business.
In the next financial year, we are looking at more branches and hiring more people. With our recent bancassurance tie-up with UCO Bank, we will need to hire 200-300 people just to service that.
Do you expect some improvements in the prices of general insurance products in FY18?
The only area where some price correction will be seen is group health. There might be some correction in mega property risks. This is because the incidence of claims has increased there.
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