India has potential to be reinsurance hub for SE Asia: Irda

Given its talent pool, India has the potential to become reinsurance hub for South Asian market, Irda Chairman T S Vijayan said today.
"Today we have only one reinsurance company in India, GIC RE... They are doing very well... India has the possibility to become a hub of all the re-insurance activities in east and South East Asia," he said at industry body Ficci's Health Insurance Conference.
"Reinsurance hub is possible because even in a city like Singapore large number of Indian people are doing the analytics job, accounts jobs, legal jobs," he said.
Therefore, India has got enough eco-system to support them educate them, he said, adding that "we can create certain entity here, which is world leader in reinsurance".

Besides, Vijayan also said the government could think of launching a 'Jan Bima Yojna' similar to Jan Dhan Yojana for banking sector to increase awareness and deepen insurance penetration.
It is time for launching a 'Jan Bima Yojna' because if telecom sector can penetrate to remotest place in the country then why can't insurance industry, he said.

Industry should think on this and learn from the success of the telecom industry, he added.
The Narendra Modi-led government launched the 'Jan Dhan Yojana' in August this year with an aim to have at least one account per household in the country.

Just like banking, the country is under-covered from an insurance point of view.