Future Generali India chief sees next phase of growth from wellness-based health insurance

In FY17, we tied-up with UCO Bank and Bank of Maharashtra to sell insurance policies through their branch network across the country. However, since the agreements happened in the latter part of the year, we are in process of initiating business from them. This will help our overall growth because the two channels which are stressing on for growth is bancassurance and agency.

But will you continue to expand in group health insurance?

We want to grow more than the industry and don’t want to chase volume if it doesn’t make sense in the bottom-line. Even in segments like motor third party, price corrections are happening but it is still not adequate.

Some capacity changes depending on loss ratios of reinsurers. But there has not been a significant change.

Wellness-based health insurance is the flavour of the season. Will you launch some products on this front?

We are in discussion with some service providers to provide expertise on that. This is a segment where the next phase of growth would come from.

How prepared are you for the new Goods and Services Tax (GST) regime?

We have already appointed a consultant to see what changes will have to be made for the GST regime. Some processes and systems may undergo a change. While some surprises can come in, we are hoping that the authorities will overlook some initial errors and give time to adapt.

Miscellaneous has been an area of growth for non-life insurers. How has it performed for you?

The share of miscellaneous business is going up and with bank partners, there are better possibilities to sell some kind of products. We also concentrate on jewellers block insurance as well. In crop insurance too, we did about Rs 200 crore of business. However, since it is driven by tender, do not want to focus too much on one segment. This is because we do not want too much variation on the top-line.