The conglomerate is planning to sell health policies like any other FMCG product by displaying it on shelves of Big Bazaar and other malls. K G Krishnamoorthy Rao, Managing Director and CEO, Future Generali India talks to Pallabika Ganguly and Mustafa Jawadwala about the various innovative initiatives taken by the company to reach to a wider range of customers
The company targets an overall health premium of Rs. 110 crore by next financial year. How do you plan to achieve the target?
We are concentrating on broadening our reach in group as well as individual health insurance. A lot of group health insurance business comes through Generali’s network which is one of the major global players in the employee benefit solutions space. Ergo, we have lot of multinational clients.
Group and retail account for 90% and 10% share of our business. By the end of next financial year, we are trying to change the ratio to 80 %( group business) and 20% (retail business). Currently, our individual health policies are sold through retail broking, bank assurance and agency but now our focus is to strengthen our agency base. We are planning to add 3000 agents by the next fiscal.
We are also looking at selling higher ticket products through mall insurance. We are trying to sell health policies like a FMCG product by displaying it on the shelves of Big Bazaar and other malls. Our officials will be present there to explain product benefits to the customers.
By the first quarter of the current fiscal, we plan to launch our pilot project of selling health insurance through malls in Mumbai.
How will health insurance portability impact your company?
We have plans to launch two new products in the next three months. One is a ‘top-up cover’ health policy and other is a simple health product. The top-up health cover is an additional insurance policy which customers can add to their existing policies. However, we are reviewing our products portfolio in the light of the new norms on health portability.
How do you plan to grow your agency base?
We are looking at various models to expand our agent base. Under the life insurance segment, we have 40,000 agents so we are currently looking at giving them the first preference to sell general insurance simultaneously. We are also looking at other sources like housewives, mutual fund agents to expand our agent base
GIC has increased disaster (catastrophic) cover premium by 15%. What is your plan regarding disaster cover premium?
We are planning to increase the cover premium by 20% for customers who plan to avail catastrophic cover.
How is your in-house servicing for health insurance doing? When do you plan to replace the TPAs completely?
We are doing well in our in-house servicing for health insurance. We initiated it November last year and we plan to replace the TPAs completely by this November.
The company is also creating a network of diagnostic centers across country for pre-policy check up. What is the current status on the same?
We have tied-up with 1950 hospitals and 400 diagnostic centers to provide cashless treatment facility.
