The potential and performance of the insurance sector is universally assessed with reference to 2 parameters – insurance penetration and insurance density.
Annual Report 2012-13 of Indian Insurance Industry
The potential and performance of the insurance sector is universally assessed with reference to 2 parameters – insurance penetration and insurance density.
The insurance density of life insurance business has gone up from USD 9.1 in 2001 to reach the peak at USD 55.7 in 2010. During 2012-13, the level of life insurance density was only USD 42.7. Similarly, the life insurance penetration surged from 2.15% in 2001 to 4.6% in 2009. Since then it has exhibited a declining trend reaching 3.17% in 2012.
Total Insurance Premium Collected
(crore)
(crore)
(crore)
2012-13
2011-12
Growth
Profit
Life Insurance
Rs.2,87,202
Rs.2,87,072
0.05%
Rs.6,948
Non – Life Insurance
Rs.62,973
Rs.52,876
19.10%
Rs.3,282
Total Policies Issued
Lakh
Lakh
2012-13
2011-12
Growth
Life Insurance (New)
441.87
441.93
-0.01%
Non – Life Insurance
1,07,024
857.44
24.82%
Health insurance continues to be one of the rapidly growing sectors in the Indian insurance industry. The growth of health insurance industry lies mainly in better customer orientation in terms of servicing the customers, standardization of procedures and definitions across the industry.
Specific provisions have been envisaged in respect of pension products. The IRDA expects that as the economy and employment grow, the demand for pension will also rise.
The IRDA has also taken active steps to enhance penetration of insurance in rural and semi-urban areas, meeting the objective of financial inclusion rapidly, cover untapped market, fulfill the social responsibility of insurers, streamline the approval process of office open requests from insurers, improve the service availability to customers by making it mandatory for all newly opened offices to provide services such as collection of premiums/proposal deposits and attending of policy service requests and discourage office openings by insurers for short durations.
The authority has taken several initiatives to enlarge the scope of distribution channels. Some of them are – Proposal of retail insurance sub-broking system, licensing of banks as insurance brokers to enable them to sell multiple products and proposal to amend web aggregator guidelines which will facilitate the web aggregators to close the leads and do other related work.
The Insurance Repository System is an initiative of the Authority to de-materialise insurance policies. Five entities have been granted the licenses to act as insurance repositories in India.
In addition to the above initiatives, the IRDA is also focusing strongly on issues like
Insurance Clearing House
Advanced System for Detection and Prevention of Frauds
Devising a long-term stand-alone motor third party insurance policy
Persistency in life insurance
Standardized products
Registered Insurers in India
As on 30th September 2013?
Type of Business
Public Sector
Private Sector
Total
Life Insurance
1
23
24
Non – Life Insurance
6
21
27
Reinsurance
1
0
1
As per the World Insurance Report, published by reinsurer major ‘Swiss Re’, overall global growth in life insurance will remain sluggish in 2013. But the premium growth in emerging markets like India and China is expected to accelerate in 2013. The outlook for non-life insurance industry will remain positive.
