Weekly Insurance Round-up Tuesday, April 19, 2022

Hello there! 👋
We're back with the next edition of Beshak's Weekly News Round-up - an analysis of all Insurance News & Updates, straight from our research desk! Don't forget to share your feedback with us, and give us a thumbs up if you find this helpful!
Let's get started! 🚀
✴️ Insurance premiums to rise as Covid-19 subsides 😨
✴️ Non-life insurers post an 11% rise in gross direct premium in FY22 📈
✴️ Tata AIA and CSC come together to make insurance accessible to rural India 🤝
✴️ Digisparsh plans to raise ₹200 Crores 💰

- Most insurance companies that hadn’t increased their premiums due to the pandemic are now set to increase their premiums to keep up with inflation.
- Considering the pandemic and its impact on the customers, insurers had not increased their premiums. This resulted in business losses for them.
- As per industry experts, the hike was being planned for the past 6 months and may happen anytime soon.
- They think not increasing the premium will put the margins of the companies under pressure and affect their profitability.
- The insurance premiums may increase between 20% to 40% - meaning there will be a steep increase in the cost for average customers who are planning to buy insurance.
Source: Outlook

- As per a report by IRDAI, non-life insurers posted an 11% increase in gross direct premium in FY22, which is ₹2,20,634.73 Crores. The gross direct premium collected in 2020-21 was ₹1,98,714.72 Crores.
- The gross direct premium of the 24 general insurers during 2021-22 was ₹1,84,775.17 Crores which was 8.79% more than ₹1,69,844.68 Crores collected during 2020-21.
- Five standalone insurers registered an increase of 32.53% (₹20,880.08 Crores) in the gross direct premium during 2021-22.
- The gross direct premium of two specialised PSU insurers - Agriculture Insurance Company of India Ltd. and ECGC Ltd. was ₹14,979.47 Crores. which was 14.22% more than ₹13,114.85 Crores collected during 2020-21.
Source: Financial Express

- Tata AIA has partnered with Common Service Centers (CSC), under the Ministry of Electronics and IT to deliver life insurance cover to rural households.
- This collaboration will allow Tata AIA Life Insurance to increase its reach to almost 95% of gram panchayats and offer them the Tata AIA Life POS Smart Income Plus Plan.
- The Tata AIA Life POS Smart Income Plus Plan offers the dual benefits of a life cover combined with savings.
- With the help of CSC’s technology-enabled distribution network that’s spread across the country, Tata AIA aims to play the role of a change agent and address rural India’s protection and savings needs through its products and services.
- The main objective of this alliance is to increase insurance penetration in India by expanding the distribution across the smaller towns and rural areas.
- Common Services Centers (CSC) is one of the mission mode projects under the Digital India Programme. It offers assisted access to essential government and public utility services, social welfare schemes, financial services, education, and skill development courses, apart from a host of B2C services.
Source: The Week

- Digisparsh, a fintech company, is all set to raise ₹200 Crores in the next two years to meet its investment plans.
- The company plans to set up digital, hop-in hop-out medical booths with the help of the government and municipal corporations.
- Customers can get their vitals checked through a device or a nurse after they enter the booth and put in their identification data. The data entered by customers will be sent to a telehealth service provider.
- Customers can get a consultation as well as funds (if needed) in the same booth or visit the nearest registered hospital/pharmacy/bank to receive further assistance in case of critical ailments.
- The company has already started testing some of these booths in tier-two markets in Central India.
- Digisparsh offers products such as insurance receivable financing, supplier financing, and patient financing to the entire value chain of the healthcare ecosystem, including patients, hospitals, and suppliers.
- Digisparsh has boarded over 200 hospitals directly and through aggregators. During the pandemic years, the company disbursed more than ₹2.6 Crore loans.
Source: The Hindu
We need your feedback 🙏
Love it? Hit the 'It's perfect' button below! Have a suggestion to improve our content? Please leave us a comment. We absolutely appreciate it!
Be the first to get this weekly news analysis, on your phone. Join the exclusive Telegram Channel for Financial Advisors 👉 t.me/beshakforadvisors

We are a group of young members of the Beshak community. We come together to brainstorm, write relevant and useful content for people (just like us) who want to figure insurance on their own. If you too want to share inputs/write for us - send us a "hey" to info@beshak.org