Originally published in: https://bankingfrontiers.live/2021/01/adversity-brings-opportunities-rakesh-wadhwa

Insurance penetration in India is amongst the lowest when compared to global peers because of the uniqueness of our country. The high cost of reaching out to deep corners of the country, access to banking services, language diversity and infrastructure asymmetry across regions are just some of the challenges to overcome.

In order to increase penetration we would need to focus on distribution innovation. As access to technology and internet services improves, we would see development of micro-services ecosystem where insurers get into tie-ups with service providers catering to the rural and underdeveloped markets. Open architecture allowed by the regulator enables these tie-ups.

The landscape of consumer behavior is also changing rapidly. Customers now are not just looking for risk management but also prevention and wellness. Here again, technology will play a critical role as there is no urban-rural divide due to high penetration of the mobile / smart phones in India.

As technology will become commoditised, marketers will need to place Emotional intelligence (EI) a notch above Artificial Intelligence (AI) and offer differentiated services to customers, says Rakesh Wadhwa of Generali Central Life Insurance while explaining the evolution the insurance segment is going through.

Babu Nair of Banking Frontiers in conversation with Rakesh Wadhwa