Evolution of Renewals and Claims in Indian Motor Insurance Industry

While the Indian General Insurance market continues to grow at a steady pace with 17% growth each year, motor insurance industry alone accounts for over 50% of the gross direct premiums earned annually. As per recent research findings, the total gross premiums of motor insurance industry in India is expected to cross 17 billion $ mark by end of 2025. With these numbers in place, it’s quite evident that the Indian motor insurance industry is growing immensely and it is now important that the insurers come up with personalized products and services that ensure complete customer satisfaction.

Developments in Claim and Renewal Process

No doubt, a lot of successful efforts have already been made in the last couple of years to improvise the customer buying experience. There was a time when the customers had to wait for few days to weeks in order to get a motor insurance or renew an existing policy. However, the things have changed drastically now as can go online, compare and buy or renew your motor insurance in just few clicks.Moreover, the insurers are now greeting their customers with the new-age claim service which is an excellent way to enhance the after-sales experience. The Indian customers are now experiencing a drastic change in the claim process as most insurance as well as web-aggregators have gradually started realising the need for a hassle-free claim process and are doing their bit to make claims handling process way more efficient and effective.

Insurers like HDFC ERGO, ICICI Lombard and Bajaj Allianz, and online insurance aggregators like PolicyBazaar.com have already started the Mobile Self Inspection Service for the ease of the customers. As per various insurers the Self Inspection Service has drastically brought down the renewal process of vehicles as things which would earlier take few days now barely take few hours. Numerous insurers even give their customers the prerogative of performing self-assessment of their damage to the vehicle and submit an instant claim for the same.

For claims, all that a customer needs to do is click pictures and record a video of the vehicle from where it is damaged and upload them for approval of the insurer. While in case of policy renewal, the customers just need to upload a video with a 360-degree view of the vehicle. Once the insurer is satisfied with the condition of the vehicle, a satisfaction notification is sent to the customer along with payment link. The feature also provides he customers with real-time updates on the progress of their claims, which can be tracked through 'my account' section on the insurer’s website or app.

Role of IRDAI

Moreover, even the Insurance Regulatory and Development of India (IRDAI) allows policyholders to perform self-assessment for claims up to Rs. 50,000/-. Apart from Self-Inspection, there are numerous services that other insurers also provide including Bajaj Allianz’s ‘Motor on the Spot’ offers self-inspection for claims up to Rs. 20,000/- through their mobile-app “Insurance Wallet”. While the self-inspection service of ICICI Lombard is available through their official mobile app, the same service offered by Future Generali can be availed through the Intelligent V Strideoeaming and Settlement Service called ‘i-ViSS’.

The author is the Chief Business Officer, General Insurance, PolicyBazaar