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foreign what I want to understand from you and starting with prasoon is that the regulator has been focusing and very aggressively focusing on adding more companies both on the life insurance health insurance as well as general insurance side uh presume in your understanding does the Indian Insurance ecosystem requires consolidation at this point of time for higher penetration and focused approach or does it require more number of companies no thank you that's a that's a very good question you see the penetration numbers of health insurance uh is all there for all of us to see uh I think the country ing to me can actually take uh more insurance companies because the penetration being so low see the fact of the matter is since it's an awareness day for insurance uh the viewers must know that the health insurance industry has paid more than 90 000 crores of claims you know in the last Financial year during covet times although it was not priced for the same industry has paid close to 30 000 crores of movement claims uh and health insurance is a living benefit product in spite of that uh I think uh whether awareness is there or not is something that you know we still are grappling with and we are spending uh as an industry more money to ensure that the consumers are aware of the relevance of health insurance because clearly health insurance I always say that uh if if if mutual funds then health insurance primarily because of the fact that you know it takes there are three important things number one it obviously gives you access to Quality Health Care uh for a lifetime because your health insurance never lapses number two it protects your long-term financial goals uh and number three obviously it helps you to remain more healthy so given all this and given that you know as the health insurance penetration goes up productivity of a country goes up I would suggest that you know the the this country can actually take care of more insurance companies hesitation your understanding uh more number of companies uh will drive this objective or do you think ah we have enough number of companies and a focused approach is what will drive this objective in an industry uh or in a nation of our size and the opportunity there is there is always space for more people and this this does not by any means uh sort of should be inferred as obviously the existing players also need to sort of press the pedal uh I mean work on the Innovation but but given the kind of opportunity uh which which sort of exists to my mind I mean you know there is enough space for more players to come in do you really believe that making Insurance products more economical uh would help increase sales of these Insurance products do you agree with that thesis um so yes uh it depends on the starter that you're talking about uh and and if you look at the income pyramid of the country uh there is the uh the the base of that pyramid where affordability is a real Challenge and for that segment uh the the focus has to be in terms of making the product affordable the debate about uh you know about the pricing can happen at the higher end of the of the triangle of the pyramid where adequacy of coverage I mean we talked about the fact that is adequacy and you know cover is it important so there the adequacy of coverage is important uh the pricing is important from a perspective of sustainability from the insurance company's perspective uh if you cut the price uh you know in a manner that your underwriting is challenged then you don't have any money to invest Prashant do you agree with bhargav on that so I will say yes partially um the life insurance is a bit different so in that context I must share with you that if you were to really look at life insurance a large part of life insurance has historically served the saving needs of Indians uh I'll you know protection came as an add-on uh whereas the basic purpose of life insurance is protection or you know some assured and as time passed over last one week the case we have seen companies increasingly focus on driving summer short but I think if you look at the coverage or penetration of protection in India is still very very low and when you talk about protection I think that's where pricing becomes very important and not just for uh the segment that currently is buying but if you go lower I think uh pricing appropriately so that it becomes affordable for people to buy it and adequately cover themselves is a very relevant subject on which life insurance companies must Focus how much of a problem is let's say an 18 GST becoming for life insurance companies on a product like protection term life insurance it is I mean it has been one of the advocacy subjects we have been going again again because protection is a very basic need and it must reach to reach everybody in India actually uh insurance for all the vision actually is predicated on saving more selling more protection not selling for savings and in that context relief on GST is definitely a very welcome step to you hire taxation on something like basic health insurance coverage uh a big issue which needs to be looked at I think so I think you know these are not products that are uh you know luxury goods by any stretch of imagination these are basic requirements and if you look at Global Benchmark and 18 for insurance is inordinately high uh ritesh since we're talking about pricing I want to understand from you uh both bhargav Prashant believe that some sections of society it does help in terms of sales if the products are economical what I want to understand from you what has so far held insurance companies back from increasing their direct sales uh continues to do even today you need to sort of have a only sort of channel view Amino an insurance company needs to be present wherever the customer wants us to be so I'm not direct okay is one of the ways I mean you know I think on different products also this this is something which varies I mean you know history seems to have shown that on products like life insurance on products like health insurance I mean these These are really advisory based products and therefore there is a greater need for advisory here I mean there is a there is a larger Trend that the direct sales sort of are on the increase uh sort of at a general level both sort of uh manual and and online but but I I think to go out and say that there is one specific Channel which which sort of grows more at the cost of the others I do not think uh sort of is really the way things would pan out in the future sometime back there were reports about how The Regulators may be looking at making uh agents uh put down the commission rates that they get on the insurance policy itself in your understanding uh uh is it a good step it's not a good step in terms of transparency to a policyholder no yes ing to me transparency is always good uh I don't think you know we can say that transparency is a problem and then understand one thing that this is a very Noble profession because once you know an agent or a distributor has been able to sell a health insurance or a Protection cover to a customer he's obviously changed his uh his life right I mean you know tomorrow from a financial protection perspective is totally covered so from that perspective you know I don't see any reason why uh even if the commissions are basically put up transparently on the policy certificate and the customer actually understands and appreciates the effort that the the distributor is putting in there is any harm uh in that particular matter in your understanding with respect to distribution do you think there is an over dependence on insurance aggregators which is why the commission reads through these aggregators are very high and and that is in fact coming in the way of making Insurance products more economical do you have this do you agree with this statement look I think what we have to think about if you really want to achieve this insurance for all and increase penetration is add more fresh Distributors which means new agents who are new to the industry new to the market not look at taking existing uh Distributors and adding a layer on top of it so wherever an insurance aggregator or an insurance distributor is adding value to the economy and to the industry in terms of adding new new distribution channels I think that's positive for all concerns wherever an insurance aggregator is just aggregating existing agents and adding a layer of cost to it I don't think it really serves a service purpose prashantha to you of course the latest two initiatives from the insurance regulator ah bhima wahak and bhima Vistar in your understanding are these two very important elements which will help the industry achieve a coverage and second part really touching the lives of people who've been away from insurance for all these years do you think these two elements have the potential to achieve both these targets absolutely yes and let me throw some data points actually if you look at the insurance premium that India has that's about 1.5 percent of global premium but if you look at the population that's about 20 so uh why is that that's because uh a very large part of India which lives in rural uh areas uh which is about 90 crores are more or less Untouched by the offerings than life insurance or Insurance Industries have to offer and the reason why it has not happened is because of two reasons one uh the economic Prosperity which talks to the affordability angle and the second one is accessibility the ability to reach out to these broader masses on an economic basic or economically uh you know you know possible way and those two are the uh the solves uh you know the bhima mahak and bhimavistar are the salts for those two things so what is a product which actually talks to the needs and in a very modular way tries to respond to affordability angle in uh in a very very effective Manner and bhimavistar actually is the sole for economically reaching out to those broader masses at a village level at a child level so that we are able to address the needs of uh you know all the people uh having said that I think the prerequisite for this to be successful is definitely a lot of action that must go towards creating awareness let's wrap up this discussion with one uh one new initiative which the regulator refers to as the UPI moment for the Indian insurance industry soon uh bhima sugam in one word what is that one thing which bhima sugam aims to achieve and will achieve ritesh conspiracy okay final word to you bhima sugam what is that one word that you Associated I want to go there's the fourth but I'll add convenience thank you so much gentlemen uh thank you so much for speaking to us uh with that it's a wrap on this insurance special thank you so much for watching this special show foreign