From the life insurance business point of view, the health insurance segment fits well into the scheme of things and the players could use the existing agency force to sell health products, MR Kumar, chairman of Life Insurance Corporation of India (LIC), said on Wednesday.
The life insurance sector had registered double-digit growth and would continue to do so, he added.
Speaking about the proposed amendment in the Insurance Act and a composite licence being considered, Kumar said they were watching the situation closely and it was a work in progress.
At present, life insurance companies are not allowed to sell general insurance products but a composite license could allow them to enter this space. Also, with health insurance, the life insurance company would have all the data and health status of the individual which could be used for insuring life leading to synergies in business, he said.
Kumar was talking on the sidelines of the annual CD Deshmukh memorial seminar on ‘transforming the life insurance sector through disruptive innovation’ organised by the National Insurance Academy in Pune.
In his keynote address, Kumar said they were not just insurance companies but data organisations.
The entire business they were doing was based on analysis of risk data and making predictions and with the data deluge emerging from the new age technologies, insurers could now have granular insight into risk, he said.
These technologies were changing how insurance business was being conducted and from being an enabler, IT was now driving new products, Kumar said.
Instead of seeking every detail directly from the customer, based on access allowed it was today possible to download personal details from Aadhar and account aggregator sites, the financial health and behaviour from CIBIL scores, and health parameters from hospitals and doctors’ databases, he said.
Such databases made decision-making easier due to the authenticity and accuracy of the data about the individual.
Going forward the process of underwriting would involve access to these databases and would improve the quality of underwriting and turnaround times with a single view of the customer from within and externally would help in the right assessment of risk, Kumar said.