Mr. Ajit Kumar, General Manager, The Oriental Insurance Company Limited

Mr. Ajit Kumar, GM, Oriental General Insurance company limited. Mr Ajit is Heading Motor Technical Dept, Techno-Legal Dept and Estate & Estab Dept at the Corporate Office of Oriental Insurance from the last 3 years. He started his career with The New India Assurance Company in 1984, he was shifted to Oriental General Insurance Company in 2013 as DGM and headed Mumbai corporate office. He has compiled a new Motor TP Conciliation Manual with practical approach to Conciliatory mechanism, which has helped in giving good results in TP segment. 

Q.     In marketing what kinds of challenges you have faced in the last 5 months?

Most of the challenges were due to Covid-19 disruption. They have been as follows:

A. Shutting down of offices and dealer points: physical interface points with clients at an all time low.

B. Latency in digitization of operations: bandwidth availability with employees limited, many  not very comfortable with full online approach, initial hurdles in digital mode process rationalization.

C. Automobile production lines came to a standstill, demand for new vehicles severely hit: consequently, very little new business could be underwritten.

D. For clients preferring agency channel/physical interface, transition to digital mode required much hand-holding and confidence building. Had to overcome initial digital inertia of our agency channel.

E. Need felt for proper Business Disruption/Disaster planning training for staff & officers. Lack of a dedicated manual for disruptive circumstances acutely felt.

F. Predatory pricing, deep discounting & poaching by pvt. players during Covid-19 disruption had created hurdles even for renewal business.

Q.     What are the challenges you anticipate for the next 7 months?

A. Suppressed demand in automobile sector will hit underwriting of new business. However, improvements seen in 2 Wheeler,Tractors & some GCCV models.

B. As new business stays restricted, predatory business practices will create further pressure in renewal procurement. Need to constantly engage with renewal clients early on via both telephonic & digital modes thereby creating pressure on our marketing force.

C. Given demand depression, automobile industry increasingly looking at Leasing/Subscription model (latest example being Toyota). Given that most OEMs have their own Broking/Finance arms, business landscape to turn sharply into their favour thereby resulting in deep discounting & erosion of insurers’ margins.    

Q.     Do you think online sales of retail products will take over traditional sales in the next 3 years? 1) If yes, Why? If No, Why?

It is expected that online sales will see exponential growth in the coming 3 years. However, the growth in expected to be geographically localized to mostly Metros & tier-1 cities.

Accordingly, the online channel taking over traditional sales channels is not envisaged, though IT enabled traditional channels will see an upsurge in the medium term. The reasons thereof are as follows:

A. Knowledge & awareness of insurance still low. People prefer a friendly advisor/agent for handholding. The latter is the human face for an otherwise inanimate corporate entity.

B. Tier 2/3 & rural areas still prefer informal networks/ personal touch for trust building. As the post-Covid economic recovery picks up, demand will spike in the non-tier 1 areas.

C. Agency channel can be empowered with Tablets/smartphones etc with which they can provide efficiency of the digital mode along with the trust factor of the personal touch thereby, offering best of both the worlds.

Q.     What are your new marketing plans?

a) Focus on Tier 2 and 3 cities for premium procurement.

b) On boarding Online channel partners and POSP platforms for premium.

c) Introduction of on demand Add on covers and RSA services.

d) Focus on generating premium by adding other OEM’s Tie up.

e) Capitalizing the upcoming festive season by offering revamped discount and incentive scheme.

f) Focus on renewal retention.

g) Exploring tie-ups with financing agencies as even our traditional products can benefit from symbiosis with innovative financial products in the offing. Further, insurance will attach right at the inception of a vehicle sale thereby increasing the probability of client stickiness.  

Q.      Which product/s do you think will do well in the next 2 years?

 Expect the following:

A. Retail business from Agent

B. Innovative ad-on cover

C. EMI protect cover

D. Hybrid/ coupled-covers like traditional motor policies coupled with loan protect covers etc.

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