Internet can play a vital role in enhancing transparency!

Beyond doubt recent slowdown has impacted all sectors and insurance is no exception. What is your strategy to combat this?

I will draw reference from the retail industry here – Same store Sales. Like open a branch in places like Moga, Siliguri or Vizag, so if a branch makes 100 units this year, it will make 120 units next year. This will lead to rationalization. Besides, you need to upgrade capital efficiency, upgrade people and upgrade branches. It’s like saying when insurance industry was counting first premiums; the Internet industry was counting eyeballs in the valley.

Yours is one of he handful of 21 odd insurers, which has the foreign brand name. Aviva is huge but for a common man on the streets, Aviva is not that well known. How does it affect the consumer?

From a customer’s point of view, whether its’ Aviva or any other, the Indian or foreign brand name does not matter. With 150% solvency margins and lot of money kept under reserves, even if all the customers come to claim, the insurance agency will not run away. There is no problem for the customer even if all 22 companies go bankrupt tomorrow morning. There is shareholders money, which is locked there for repaying customers.
With particular reference to Aviva, let me add here that our brand recall is probably highest in the industry. Our brand share is higher than the market share. The reason for that is that Sachin Tendulkar has been extraordinarily successful as a brand ambassador for Aviva. Our brand recall is 93% and spontaneous awareness is 30%, which is noteworthy.

About Aviva

Aviva is UK's largest and the world's fifth largest insurance Group. It is one of the leading providers of life and pensions products to Europe and has substantial businesses elsewhere around the world. With a history dating back to 1696, Aviva has a 50 million-customer base with presence in 27 countries. It has £381 billion of assets under management.

In India, Aviva has a long history dating back to 1834. At the time of nationalisation it was the largest foreign insurer in India in terms of the compensation paid by the Government of India. Aviva was also the first foreign insurance company in India to set up its representative office in 1995.

In India, Aviva has a joint venture with Dabur, one of India's oldest, and largest Group of companies. A professionally managed company, Dabur is the country's leading producer of traditional healthcare products.