There is a genuine trend towards flight to safety: Kamlesh Rao

Digital push

Private sector Aditya Birla Sun Life Insurance remains upbeat about its growth prospects despite the Covid-19-led crisis, and said there has been a sharp increase in demand for products for protection and guaranteed savings plan.

“The product basket is shifting because both risk awareness and risk averseness have gone up. There is a genuine trend towards flight to safety,” said Kamlesh Rao, Managing Director and CEO, Aditya Birla Sun Life Insurance.

Guaranteed savings plans,which offer a reasonable return, and protection products are now seeing an upswing, he further said.

“We have seen a 25 per cent jump in the protection part of the business and 30-40 per cent increase in the guaranteed savings plan,” he told BusinessLine in an interaction.

The demand for protection plans has gone up amongst younger people, while older customers prefer to purchase guaranteed savings products.

Rao also noted that while there has been stable growth in Tier I cities, Tier 2, 3 and 4 towns are showing an increased trend towards these two product categories.

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Speaking on the insurer’s digital enablement, Rao said the company had been working on digital capabilities for the last one year and expects to grow by 20 per cent over last fiscal.

We have grown by five per cent in the same period when the industry has de-grown by 17-18 per cent,” he said, adding that the company has also increased the digital enablement of renewals of policies.

“We are doing more renewals now than what we had planned in pre-Covid time,” he said.

For the quarter ended June 30, the insurer recorded 34 per cent growth in gross premium income, at ₹1,689.6 crore.