ICICI Pru chief for simpler products in life insurance

livemint.com:

ICICI Prudential Life Insurance Company Anup Bagchi has got his task cut out and given his banking background, his focus is on simplifying Life Insurance products. In an interview, Bagchi said just like the Indian Premier League (IPL) changed the way people watched cricket, consumers need simpler life insurance products, and insurers need to design a simpler process of onboarding customers for complex products. Earlier an executive director at ICICI Bank, he was named CEO for five years starting 19 June.

“We need to simplify onboarding, and underwriting. De-jargonizing the industry is an important thing. People should not hesitate to buy and should feel comfortable and therefore complexities need to be reduced," he said explaining that the market doesn’t unlock value where customers feel diffident about buying.

Life insurance penetration in India was 3.2% in 2021, almost twice that of emerging markets and slightly above the global average, as per data in the 2022-23 Economic Survey. As per the survey, most life insurance products sold in India are savings-linked, with just a small protection component, and households therefore remain exposed to a significant financing gap in the event of the premature death of the primary breadwinner. Bagchi said life insurance demand in India is still latent and people tend to put off their insurance purchase plans, which is the biggest barrier for deeper market penetration.