Bima Sugam Flashcards
What is Bima Sugam?
It’s an Amazon-like platform where all life and general insurance policies will be listed. Bima Sugam will be used for sale, servicing and claims coming from these insurance policies.
Who will have access to Bima Sugam?
It will be accessible by Insurers, Agents & Intermediaries and Customers
Policies can be purchased both through intermediaries and directly by customers. Customers can buy life, motor or health insurance policy through Bima Sugam.
(Srivatsan’s note: Property policies is not mentioned. Only Motor and Health is mentioned)
Who will get the funds to start Bima Sugam and who will own this platform?
Bima Sugam will need approximately Rs 85 crore as initial capital. Insurance companies are expected to be major shareholders of this insurance platform.
So initially, some general insurance companies will hold about 30 percent stake in Bima Sugam and another 30 percent will be held by some life insurance companies. As more funds are required for the operations of Bima Sugam, more insurance companies will be roped in as investors.
What will be the benefit of Bima Sugam?
Lower commissions on policies, hence insureds will be able to get policies for a lower premium.
Bima Sugam will pave way for the new entrant start-ups who are adopting a Sandbox approach in terms of unique offerings such as OPD covers, etc.
This in my view will also open gates for Insurtech and Wealthtech players to leverage the opportunity of having a centralised database, and common API integration exposures across products from all categories.
Agent portability will surely help genuine customers who are facing difficulties with existing agents in terms of getting services.
Existing Insurance Repository will get a boost
The existing fintech players who have transactional platforms may be impacted by Bima Sugam.
