With an aim to empower the $11 trillion insurance market in India, the upcoming India Insurtech Summit will highlight the impact of regulators' upcoming policy changes for the sector.

A big push will be on digital transformation to help deepen insurance penetration and encourage digitisation across the value chain. Top leaders across the industry from companies like Aditya Birla Sunlife Insurance, Bharti AXA Life Insurance, HDFC Life, Bajaj Allianz General Insurance, and many more will participate in the summit organised by banking and fintech consulting firm The Digital Fifth.

IRDAI has already set in motion some of the key digital initiatives like  Bima Sugam, a unified digital marketplace for health, life, and general insurance products, which is expected to be operationalised this year. This will improve the transparency and ease of access for customers. IRDAI has already relaxed product filing norms, allowing insurers to launch new products without prior approval. This is expected to continue, fostering innovation and speed-to-market. The regulator is working on new policies to deepen insurance penetration in rural and underserved markets through microinsurance and simplified distribution models. There will also be new guidelines launched to encourage digitisation across the policy lifecycle — from onboarding and KYC to claims settlement. A second phase of the sandbox is expected to bring about more flexibility and support insurtech and legacy players to test emerging models like usage-based insurance, embedded products, and parametric covers.

“We are looking forward to having some deep discussion and speaker sessions by distinguished industry voices to reimagine the world of insurance. India’s insurance market is at an inflection point and the regulator has been pushing through a lot of changes via its ‘Insurance for All by 2047’ mission. The launch of embedded insurance, AI and analytics, claims automation using GenAI and ML models to improve profitability will be some of the key changes that the sector will see over the next few years. The future of insurance also lies in digital distribution channels from WhatsApp-based insurance to voice-enabled buying journeys,” said Sameer Singh Jaini, Founder, The Digital Fifth.  

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A rise in SaaS and middleware platforms are serving both new-age and traditional insurers to enable rapid digital adoption. Overall, digital transformation is expected to lower acquisition costs, improve customer experience, and open new product-market opportunities. Regulators are also actively exploring the idea of a composite insurance license — allowing single company to offer both life and general insurance products. This will help enhance customer experience, allow insurers to diversify risk and revenue streams and encourage innovation in product bundling. If introduced, this move will be a game-changer — promoting consolidation, better distribution leverage, and holistic coverage for consumers.

Within Bank assurance, the IRDAI continues to push for open architecture, where banks (as corporate agents) can tie up with multiple insurers across life, general, and health verticals through corporate agent model simplification & open architecture reinforcement. Banks and insurers jointly can also now apply under sandbox norms to test new-age bancassurance models.