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Interview of Shrirang Samant, CEO, HDFC
Chubb General Insurance
How tough is the competition in the non-life sector?
Its very tough. There are 11 players altogether; four public
sector companies and seven private insurers so you can imagine.
But though private players are recent entrants, for the last
six months they have done more business comparatively . They
have been getting into the market slowly but getting more
and more market share and to the best of my knowledge most
of them are on target.
How do you plan to leverage on the strength of the HDFC
brand in the retail segment, to sell risk covers?
Since HDFC has built up a solid reputation for itself over
the years we will try and leverage on it as much as we can.
Firstly we plan to focus on personal lines - motor insurance
and subsequently target the home loan segment by offering
covers to those who have taken home loans from HDFC. Further
on it will be group covers and later personal accident.
How many products do you have?
At the moment we only have one - i.e motor policy since we
launched our operations only recently. In a few days time
we'll have householders policy, travel insurance, commercial
covers like fire, office for business etc. in other words
property casualty etc.
What kind of speciality covers do you plan to launch?
You must be aware that Chubb is one of the largest insurers
in the world for speciality covers. We plan to launch covers
for D&O, IT service providers, the Telecom sector, life
sciences to name a few, in about six months time. Yes. It
may take about six months because we are doing research since
India is a virgin territory for us.
How different are your products going to be?
Our products will definitely be different. To the best of
my knowledge AIG is the only other company that has the above
mentioned products.
Your target audience please?
For motor our target audience right now is the new private
car owners. Initially we plan to concentrate on the dealer
profile rather than the driver profile. Later on our focus
will be group customers, customers of HDFC affiliate companies,
then corporates and so on.
Your distribution tie-up?
Presently we dont have any tie up as such but in future our
tie-ups will be through HDFC group companies and other financial
institutions.
Motor insurance has been a loss making business for most
of the insurers. The sector being one of your focus areas
what kind of innovativeness do you plan to bring about considering
the present scenario?
We are conscious that it is a loss making sector. The sector
can be segmented into two - the third party coverage and own
damage. What is happening is that there is a lot of analysis
that has to be made and a lot of systemic issues that need
to be sorted out to steer clear of losses.
What kind of changes will the soon-to-happen de-tariffing
of the sector bring?
You'll agree that any market detariffing leads to instant
competition. Price competition is essentially the first reaction.
There will be a domino-effect. Later there will be fall in
motor risk prices and subsequently the market will stabilise.
Insurers will be able to underwrite good covers, in the sense,
experienced and good drivers who are more cautious will fork
out a lower amount for risk cover and will receive better
benefits. So it will be more driven by the driver profile
than the vehicle profile as is the case today.
Have you entered any tie-ups for motor insurance?
No. We do not have ties ups but direct market dealers of
about 20-25 all over India. We are still in the process of
having more dealers which will happen in course of time.
What is your target for this year?
Talking of a specific target set would be difficult at this
stage.
What is your advertising budget?
Our advertising budget is very limited. We do not have plans
to splurge heavily on advertising campaigns. Its not planned
as such. We may go for may be just PoP publicity, limited
outdoor publicity - it all depends.
Whom have you tied up with for health insurance?
We have tied up with a third party administrator but I would
not like to disclose more on that now. We will be rolling
out our health products in a month's time.
Have you tied up with auto majors to push auto covers?
If so with whom? If not, when do u plan to?
Talks about a tie-up is on but no further comments on that
one now.
Your future plans.
We plan to live up to Chubb's worldwide reputation. We have
a long term commitment to India. Both our parent companies
have brought in high quality of corporate conduct to the market
and the bottomline is honesty, integrity and serving the needs
of our policyholders and investors.
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