Summary: 20th Insurance Summit by NIA

Along with the Keynote & Special Address, the first Panel Discussion in 20th Insurance Summit organized by National Insurance Academy on the topic ‘Embracing the New Age Technologies: Envisaging Industry 5.0’ presented very interesting perspectives of the changing dynamics in the Insurance industry.

The discussion was moderated by Mr. Amit Roy (Partner & Leader, Insurance & Allied Business, PWC India). The esteemed panelist Mr. T. Babu Paul (Executive Director, National Insurance Company Limited), Mr. Debashish Banerjee (Partner – Insurance Leader | AI & Analytics Leader, Deloitte, India), Mr. Rajiv Gupta (President, PB Fintech Ltd., Parent company of Policybazaar and Paisabazaar) and Mr. Neeraj Malhotra (CEO, AccelTree Software Pvt. Ltd). presented their unique & interesting views on the theme.

              The panelists mentioned that the organizations have been typically looking for investment in technology to provide stable returns for the next 10 years. But in the rapidly evolving tech ecosystem, the applications & systems are changing rapidly and also adding pressure on the margins and making ROI a long-term game. It is critical that natural intelligence should augment artificial intelligence, for better outcome. And trustworthy AI becomes critical aspect of it.

              The panelists the insurance, which is ‘sold’ than ‘bought’ sill has sizable dependency on the humans (agents, brokers & others) and the structural support needs to be strengthened (through initiatives such as Bima Sugam) to reach to the last mile and increase the penetration of insurance and vast population of India.

              The panelists also highlighted changes in insurance ecosystem with de-tariffing, analysis of weather / catastrophe patterns, change in population dynamics of India (i.e., potential of 30% senior citizens in 2045), changing insurance needs moral hazards, covering the vulnerable group (i.e. in the age bracket of 45 to 65 yrs.). The discussion emphasized importance of making insurance attractive and business as usual considering current & future dynamics in the country like ours.

The presentation round was on the topic ‘Insuring the Digital Core: risk Mitigation Strategies Optimizing the Insurance Value Chain’ which was moderated by Dr. Steward Doss (Professor, NIA). The speakers included Mr. Vinay Kumar Sankarapu (Founder & CEO, Arya.ai), Mr. Subhobroto Ghosh (Director, Data Analytics, Allstate Insurance), Mr. Sumit Ramani (Co-Founder & Actuary, ProtectMeWell.com), Mr. Pankaj Kumar (VP, Head of Engineering – Cloud, Application & Data, Value Momentum) and Mr. K Muralidar (Executive Director Digital Marketing, LIC of India).

              It was mentioned during the session that Collaborative AI is driving the digital innovation in Insurance business. It was also highlighted that we need good data for good AI. The focus of Industry 5.0 is AI-first and demands AI skills, AI agents (with multiple skills & roles) to implement it effectively. The focus is on delivering instant suited products, instant product benefits and personalization. The AI focusing on autonomous Underwriting, Claims, Fraud and recommendations can deliver better outcome. Insurance companies might be typically using only 10-155 of their data effectively and with 80-90% of data being unstructured (like wearables, geospatial data), the organizations need to enhance their strategies to leverage tech for delivering the outcome. Leveraging changing distribution models (embedded, pay-as-you-go, usage based, parametric, on-demand, sachet, micro, bite-sized), claims and underwriting innovation, the organizations can significantly leapfrog their business and both proactive and preventive steps. It was also highlighted that customer’s preferences (including Gen Z, Gen Alpha) needs to be at the center-stage for delivering the expected growth.

The second panel discussion was on the topic ‘Data Protection, Privacy and Insurance – Enhancing Cyber Security and Building Resilience’ which was moderated by Mr. Swayamjit Mishra (MD & Partner, BCG). The panelists included Mr. Pavan Duggal (Founder, Pavan Duggal Associates), Mr. Naavi Vijayashankar (Chairman, Foundation of Data Protection Professionals in India (FDPPI)), Dr. N. Raveendran (Principaln Consultant, Xsentinel Risk & Claim Advisory Pvt. Ltd) and Mr. Priyesh Pradhan (Senior Underiter, Professional Financial Risks & Cyber, Markel Services India Pvt. Ltd).

              The discussions highlighted that insurance companies hold significantly large amount of data (with Volumes, Varieties and Velocity of Personal, Health & Financial data) and hence Digital Data Protection Action is bringing a major change. From the prior focus only on data-breach the act focuses on protecting personal data, appointing data protection officer and risks associated with adoption of new tech. the act bring lot of responsibility for collecting / storing / processing not only the newly acquired data, but also the legacy data, with customer’s consent. Data fiduciary needs to take care of data subject and is different from European GDPR act. The organizations need to be aware of not only DPDP act, but also needs to consider IT rules and directives of 2021, IT Act and Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita. Hence the organizations need to adopt cyber security as a way of life and ensure that they have right paperwork, compliance as well as implementation avoid any breaches. Focus on Privileged Access Management, Business Continuity Planning, Disaster Recovery and regular audits are critical elements of cyber security posture that every player in insurance industry needs to ensure going forward.

Thank you National Insurance Academy (NIA) for organizing 20th Insurance Summit and providing a platform for excellent knowledge sharing focused on Insurance sector.