Long-term motor policies announced by the insurance coverage regulator in 2018, along with elevated awareness and simplification of the acquiring procedure, will support penetration of motor insurance coverage, Parthanil Ghosh, president, motor enterprise at HDFC ERGO General Insurance, tells Chirag Madia in an interview. Excerpts:
Motor insurance coverage is a single of the significant segments for non-life insurance coverage business, but this year it has noticed adverse development. When will the development come back?
The penetration of motor insurance coverage is considerably larger than the other lines of enterprise as it is mandatory to have at least a third celebration insurance coverage when acquiring a new car. However, new car sales are in adverse territory this fiscal due to the pandemic. Nevertheless, in the final 3-4 months, they are displaying indicators of recovery. But, at HDFC ERGO, we have been in a position to improve of marketplace share in this economic year even our motor insurance coverage renewal prices have come back to pre-COVID occasions. I think motor insurance coverage is coming back to normalcy and it will enter the development zone as quickly as the scenario stabilises additional.
What additional can be carried out for expansion of motor insurance coverage?
As far as motor insurance coverage is concerned, important measures had been taken by the insurance coverage regulator by introducing extended-term policies in 2018. We have a trouble that about 47% of the automobiles plying on the road in 2018 had been uninsured with a massive proportion of the very same becoming two-wheelers. With the introduction of the extended-term motor policy, all the new two-wheelers considering that September 2018 are obtaining 5 years of third-celebration insurance coverage policy and this is 3 years for 4-wheelers. I think that extended-term policies, along with elevated awareness and simplification of the acquiring procedure, will support insuring a bigger motor population in the subsequent handful of years.
What revolutionary options will you be bringing in the motor insurance coverage space?
In retail insurance coverage, we ought to guarantee how rapidly and promptly we can concern the policy. At present, 96% of our policies are issued digital, without the need of any human interventions. Even just after issuance, most of the retail policies do not will need any interventions, unless it is a claim. Around 75% of all the motor claims are intimated digitally by policyholders. Secondly, if we appear at renewals, about 40% of the private car or truck insurance coverage and 80% of private two-wheelers are renewed digitally. Even 75% of our claims are digital surveyed.
The pandemic has hampered regular functioning as nicely as the use of automobiles. We have identified challenges about the very same and come forward to provide extra advantages to policyholders and enhance adoption of motor insurance coverage. We introduced a bunch of offerings which ensured customers’ smooth navigation by way of challenges they faced, in particular in the course of the lockdown. One such providing is: Fast Track Theft Settlement, which enhances speedy and seamless theft claim settlement. Here the settlement is carried out inside a record period of 9 days on an typical, compared with 70 days earlier. Lastly, I would say that innovation is not a thing that we have began now, it is exactly where we make our policyholder’s journey quite smooth, accessible and simple.
HDFC ERGO had lately launched AI tool Tips for motor claim settlement. Can you elaborate how this tool can support policyholders?
In the common insurance coverage business, we deal with massive quantity of transactions, and that is a single of the motives we, as an business, have been going digital at a quicker pace. At HDFC ERGO, we have adopted ‘digital first’ strategy a handful of years back in our whole service architecture for each policy issuance as nicely as claims servicing. At a single finish, we have massive quantity of transactions, and on the other, we will need to settle claims effectively. So, we have launched AI-powered Tips (Intelligent Damage detection Estimation and Assessment Solution) which will support policyholders.
Tips regularly supplies ideal assessments irrespective of geographies and claims estimate in an very rapidly manner. This new tool utilizes neural network image processing and analytics, machine understanding and organic language that supports immediate harm detection as nicely as calculation of the claims estimate for surveyors. With this tool, surveyors will be in a position to verify the accurateness of their assessment and there will be smaller sized quantity of conflicts with policyholders. At the very same time, claims will be settled in a quite expeditious manner.