The Changing World of Insurance: Opportunities and Challenges

By Geetanjali Vikram Kirloskar Change is coming to the insurance business, which will be even more pronounced in India. The societal perception of risk has increased over the last few decades, driven by natural calamities, accidents, machinery failures in an increasingly automated world, cyber threats and illnesses. While this increased risk perception can be seen as an opportunity for the global insurance industry, it also calls for the industry to reinvent itself before Big Tech, armed with increasingly powerful AI, disrupts the industry. In India, the insurance industry faces a turbo-charged opportunity and challenge. Indian society and economy will undergo a paradigm shift over the following decades. We will go from a low-income to a middle-income country in a decade, and if we stay on our current trajectory, we will be a high-income country in the next three decades. Projections are that affluent households with annual incomes over Rs 30 lakhs in today's money that can afford...