RESEARCH PAPER
Health for all Through Panchayat in West Bengal: A Perspective
- - Srabanti Chakravarti (Mukherjee)
This paper focusses on the need of intervention of the Gram Panchayat in the arena of universal access of healthcare; and healthcare financing. Although 75% of India's population live in rural areas, there are remarkable inequalities in terms of educational achievements, employment opportunities, purchasing power, and health and its attributes including infant mortality, general morbidity, economic security in terms of assured income earning opportunities, and so on. In this paper, an attempt is made to build up a hypothetical model where universal coverage could be achieved by a multi-tiered insurance system through panchayat with varying degree of subsidization according to the perceived economic vulnerability on the part of the population insured.
© 2005 IUP. All Rights Reserved
COVER STORY
Insurers Tackle a Tough Enemy
- - Frank Cerne
To aggressively and successfully fight fraud, insurers need a proper balance of trained professionals and technology. And they need organizational commitment to fight the good fight.
© SourceMedia 2005. Published in Insurance Networking News, May, 2005. Reprinted with permission.
PENSION AND ANNUITY
Study of Working Longer for Older Population in China
- - Zhenzhen Sun
Global aging is a trend that is fundamental, irreversible and an established issue in the new millennium. Among the problems with population aging, the financing of public pensions is one of the difficulties to cope with. The paper identifies this problem from the demographic pressures on social security systems and the experiences of some countries with great population aging. In view of the complexity of the questions involved, and the diversity of problems and possible solutions around the world related to reformation of the pension system, the paper focusses on the discussion of deferring retirement age to solve the pressure of pension funds and explore the possibility of practicing it in China.
©2005 IUP. All Rights Reserved
LIFE INSURANCE
Claims Settlement: The Key Success Factor of LIC
- - J Rajesh C Jampala and Bh Venkateswara Rao
The sustenance, growth and development of organizations, to a considerable extent, depend on a few factors known as Key Success Factors (KSFs). In the insurance sector, the KSFs are product benefits, competitive premiums, products/plans differentiation through promotion and claims settlement. Among these different KSFs, claims settlement is the major factor for the success of LIC as its claims settlement operations are transparent and fair. The corporation looks for reasons to settle claims rather than avoid making payments on claims. In short, LIC's ability to withstand competitive pressure in the market can largely be attributed to its positive and proactive claims settlement operations.
© 2005 IUP. All Rights Reserved
NON-LIFE INSURANCE
Intellectual Property Insurance
- - Amit Banerji and Ashok Lahoti
With rapid changes in the world economies and the continuing shift to a service and information-based economy dependent on technology, future insurance coverages have to focus on new types of first-party losses and complex third-party liability issues. As policyholders seek to exploit new business opportunities both domestically and abroad, and as insurers also explore new potential markets, policyholders should carefully analyze strategies for using insurance to hedge against foreseeable and unforeseeable business risks such as the loss of computer data or corruption of storage networks, infringement of intellectual property rights, risk of attacks on computer networks, and the possible theft of trade secrets.
© 2005 IUP. All Rights Reserved
RISK AND INSURANCE
Microinsurance: Managing the Impact of Risks in the Informal Sector
- - Jangaiah Paladi
Most of the people in developing economies are poor and suffer losses on account of drought, floods, diseases, etc. Economic reforms have exposed them to increased risks, while their ability to manage risks is on the wane. This article tries to explore some of the risk management techniques, especially microinsurance, to mitigate their risks.
© 2005 IUP. All Rights Reserved
INSURANCE OPERATIONS
LIC: Making Inroads into Rural India
- - Krishna Kumar
The article highlights LIC's rural penetration, inherent problems in implementation, growth over the years, social schemes for the rural poor and the `Bima Gram' program.
© 2005 IUP. All Rights Reserved
INSURANCE OPERATIONS
The Profession of Insurance Agents: A Retrospect
- - Devarakonda Ramesh
With the advent of private players, the overall profession of agents has started acquiring new colors. One cannot expect results in the short run. Any course of life that has been started for a meaningful livelihood would become a profession and enhance career prospects with best standards and ethics through a constant and calibrated approach.
© 2005 IUP. All Rights Reserved
COUNTRY PROFILE
Investing in China's P&C Market
- - Duncan Spooner
There seems to be an increasing clamor among the world's leading insurance companies to get into the action in China's fledgling P&C market. With everyone jumping on the bandwagon, should these insurers be regarded as proof that great minds think alike or alternatively as fashion victims set to lose out when attention moves elsewhere? Duncan Spooner, Actuarial Partner, Deloitte, who leads their General Insurance practice in Asia, gives a close up on whether the time is right to jump into China with both feet or just dip a big toe.
©2005 Asia Insurance Review (www.asiainsurancereview.com). Reprinted with permission.
INSURANCE MARKETING
Cross-selling: A Conundrum
- - Jack Burke
People depend on insurance agents or brokers for the selection and buying of policies related to life, health, automobiles, etc. But it has been found that most agents or brokers specialize in selling policies related only to a particular field. Will it not be a professional add-on for the insurance intermediaries to periodically contact their clients, understand their economic needs, and adopt multi-line selling to satisfy customers.
©2004 Jack Burke, Sound Marketing, Inc. (www.soundmarketing.com). Reprinted with permission.
REGULATION
Regulators Look for a Clue - - Kevin B O'Reilly
The availability of certain types of homeowners insurance claims data has left regulators, consumer advocates and independent agents looking for a clue. Claims Loss Underwriting Exchange database, known as CLUE, collects loss-history information for both auto and homeowners insurance, but it is the latter that has put the claims-reporting practices of CLUE and its insurance carrier contributors under the magnifying glass.
©2005 by Wells Publishing, Inc. (www.insurancejournal.com). Reprinted with permission.
RESEARCH SUMMARY
Bancassurance in India
This research paper presents a research study on the growth of the banking sector in India and lack of coordination between banks and insurance regulation, bad loans and overstaffing in Indian banks, and long-term drivers in bancassurance, which has created confusion in implementing bancassurance. It highlights the reasons why banks are entering into bancassurance, and finally describes a model for banks to enter the insurance industry.
© 2005 Tapen Sinha. All Rights Reserved. IUP holds the copyright for the summary. |
