Mr. Ghosh is the President - Motor Business and is directly responsible for Agency and Automotive Practices of the company. He also drives Motor business distribution across channels and leads the Motor underwriting and claims practices. He has a rich experience of over 28 years with more than 25 years in financial services. He joined HDFC General Insurance (erstwhile L&T Insurance) in 2010 and is a member of the Executive Management at HDFC ERGO. Mr. Ghosh is a Science graduate from the University of Calcutta and holds a Masters Degree in Business Management. 

Q. What kind of challenges you and your agents network have you faced in the last 5 months?

The Agency network thrives on personal engagement with their clients and hence meeting clients at their homes or offices has been the biggest challenge,due to the physical distancing being followed amidst the lockdown. Moreover, premium collection through cash or cheques became almost impossible in the first few months of the lockdown resulting in confusion amongst the clients and agents. The urge to serve their clients actually forced a number of agents to start physically contact their clients, neglecting their own health concerns.

But, both the agent community and the insurers have shown exemplary agility to put in place a few changed guidelines and rules in an effort to turn challenges in to opportunity. What also helped was the insurers’ readiness with the digital expertise and the authorities nudge to relax a certain rules for the renewal of policies. Apart from these challenges, the pandemic itself propelled customers to enquire about individual health products to cover themselves. The introduction of a slew of contemporary health products during these times also helped agents and insurers to further deepen the penetration of the health products.

However, the most defining changes during the last few months have been the adoption of digital platform by the agents. Not only for new policy issuance or renewal of existing policies, the agent community embraced digital conference platforms to engage with both clients and insurers. Under normal circumstances, organising a weekly meeting or training was always a logistical challenge; however, limited mobility during the past months allowed agents to join the trainings from the comfort of their homes. While the engagement index moved northwards, both the insurers and agents started feeling confident to embrace the new normal. Engagement moved from physical to digital - both with agents and customers.

Challenges were no more a hurdle, but converted to opportunities wherein we saw:

• Adoption of digital tools increased significantly - agent portal, policy issuance, digital payments, claim settlement etc. Infact the digital payments for policy issuance by agents increased manifold to stabilise at 80%+
• Increased frequency of training which in normal times were a challenge
• Increase in demand for health insurance policies

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

The last few months of lockdown have given us opportunities to realign our processes and develop robust digital solutions. However, some of the challenges that we foresee in the coming months are:

• Continued restricted  interaction with agents and customers
• Volatility in demand - retail Health may witness a rise demand, while Motor is likely to remain under pressure
• Slowdown in new agent recruitment process and expansion to new geographical locations

Q. Do you think online sales of retail products will take over traditional sales in the next 5 years? If yes, why?If no, why?

Let us classify the ‘Online Sales’ into two parts -

• Customer buying directly from insurer's portal
• Customers buying through intermediaries via digital model

As we speak, 90% of most of the retail products are sold online – either directly by insurers’ through their portal or through intermediaries like Web Aggregators or agents. Hence,it’s a certainty that the customers will increasingly prefer to buy online. And, in this space both the ‘traditional sales channels’ and Web Aggregators are embracing latest technologies. Moreover, following the footsteps of contemporary channels like Web Aggregators,most  of the traditional channel partners like agents have also adopted digital initiatives to complete the entire sale process on an online mode. Through this initiative, most of the insurers have developed agent portals and native Apps through which agents provide customised buying journey to the customers. In order to facilitate this adoptioninsurers also provide ‘renewal protection’ to the agents so that customers are motivated to go to the insurers portal to renew their policies online without any fear of losing the credit of the business.

The traditional channels have also evolved over the years to provide personalized advice with similar digital experience for customers. Considering the larger pie of business is retained by agents, focus on personalized service, opportunity to cross sell etc., traditional sales are not likely to be significantly replaced by online sales in next 5 years. We believe, both the channels will exist and cater to different customer segments and products for growth.

Q. What future do you see for your existing agent network?

Agents have always focussed on building relationship with customers and offering solutions to meet their requirements. This focus on building relationships has been the differentiator vis-à-visthe other channels. We observe this trend not only in India but across the world even in the developed countries. More importantly, insurance being an advisory product, the customers also want a discussion with the agents before taking the final decision. Hence, even in online channels, ‘assisted’ sale consists of a large proportion which is nothing but an expert advice, which the customers seek for an insurance product, even on the online platforms. Moreover, increased penetration of insurance products will increase the size of the serviceable population manifold. Hence, we believe the future for the agents is bright; provided they are willing to adopt newer technologies, expand their product offerings and continuously re-skill themselves with the fast changing environment

Q. What are your plans for expanding the agent network?

We are extremely bullish and proud of our agent network. You may be aware that post the merger with HDFC ERGO Health Insurance, we will have the largest agent network amongst all the General Insurance companies in the country. And, we will continue to invest in this network as we realise that only large and efficient agent network canfurther deepen insurance penetration across the country. Of course, they need to be equipped with all digital tools, and to that end we have robust digital platforms for the agents, which is their mobile office to respond to all kinds of customer needs. We are expanding our geographical presence in the upcountry locations and recruiting large number of agents to join our elite agency force

Q. Which product do you think will do well in the next 2 years and why?

The current pandemic situation has increased the awareness for health insurance products amongst the consumers. We foresee a significant demand pull for health insurance products in the coming days.

In the next 2 years, we will definitely see higher penetration of retail health products. We expect new product launches within health and wellness space in the next few quarters. Also, we foresee launches of a slew of small ticket innovative products related to cyber security, employment, lifestyle, home among others. On the other hand, Motor products will remain a significant contributor to new sales along with the new age covers like pay as you drive, electric vehicles and shared mobility. On a whole, we are looking ahead to an exciting time of having a wide range of general insurance products specific to the needs of the customers and to cover for all possible financial risks that we face in our daily life.