Kathmandu. Deputy General Manager (DGM) of Siddhartha Premier Insurance is Deepak Kumar Dhoot. He joined NLG Insurance in 1995 and started his career in the insurance sector. He worked there for 11 years. He then joined Siddhartha Insurance in 2006. He is also serving in The Siddhartha Premiere formed after the merger. He has been active in the non-life insurance sector for almost 29 years and has an MBA in Market Management from Indira Gandhi National Open University, New Delhi, India. He is also a Fellow of The Insurance Institute of India and a Visiting Faculty of the Insurance Institute of Nepal. Summary of the conversation in Insurance Talk} with the same DGM Dhoot:
the last three months of the financial year appear to be left. What is the pace of business?
There is no such increase in insurance premiums. The market has grown only around 7 percent. Therefore, such a good achievement has not been seen.
Siddhartha Premier is also a merged company. It was also a big goal. How easy is it to move forward on that path after the merger?
The challenge is that two or more companies merge with each other. It’s been two years since we merged. A little bit of challenges came in the beginning. But there is no such thing now.
Are you Siddharth’s representative or Premier’s?
I was siddhartha’s employee.
Have you joined Siddhartha from any other company?
I initially joined NLG Insurance in 1995. After working there for 11 years, I have been living in Siddharth continuously since 2006. Even after the merger, I am in Siddhartha Premiere.
Will there be a race to go to number one, two, three, or after the capital becomes larger?
We also have a challenge. We are also getting expectations from the board about this. The question is when we will reach number one. We are doing a good job. The situation is good in the indicators.
Is a good place to claim to be a number?
Claim to be the number one, in no time. But that takes time. But if we look at the overall economic situation and portfolio, we are satisfied.
The company and the authority have also not paid attention to the post-merger effect properly. Have you noticed yourself? Is there a problem here and there, should it be adjusted like this?
From time to time, there are small problems. But it has to be adjusted. For that, we have to sit with each other and solve the problem. We don’t have any such problem right now.
Especially non-life insurance companies drag businesses around because new businesses do not develop much?
Be right. That’s the size of the cake. It’s going on to tell you this year, next year with me and next year with another. The market is small. That’s why it’s hard to bring in a new business. In such a situation, it becomes difficult.
Is the practice of unhealthy competition very high in the market khosakhos?
This is because it is very difficult to find a ‘virgin market’ in today’s situation. A large premium is required to grow a business. For that, we have to make proposals in corporate houses. When you go to micro, agricultural or any other insurance, there is not much premium base in it. That’s why we have to go into motor insurance and property insurance. There are many possibilities. For that, we are also looking for new places. Agents are also bringing business in a hurry. We are also trying to bring business from the corporate house.
Looking at the business of non-life insurance companies in Nepal, it was said that property insurance and health insurance are good. But the companies didn’t go there much.
Property insurance and motor insurance are so good. At one point of time, the share of motor insurance was around 45-50 percent. The share of property insurance is 25 percent. Talking about our company, 35 percent is in motor and another 35 percent in property insurance. which is in balance. It has been 17 years since health insurance was introduced in Nepal. However, it has been a little forward only for the last 5-6 years. The health insurance situation in India is very good. But the situation is very different here.
What is the status of health insurance in Nepal now?
Health insurance accounts for 4-5 per cent of the premium.
This is very low, isn’t it? In Nepal, citizens spend the most on education and health. However, there is not much share in health insurance. Don’t you pay attention or don’t you have a market?
It’s not unnoticed. The market thinking is another. Anywhere in the world, health insurance means rs 100,000, Rs 200,000 or Rs 500,000 for hospitalisation if a major accident occurs in the future. But in Nepal, the thinking is different. Here people are more interested and concerned about OPD than hospitalization. If insured, it starts with how much to give in the OPD. Giving an OPD means destroying the portfolio. There will be a claim in this. It may be one percent or two percent of its premium. Even now, the claim is 100 percent.
is this loss-making product?
Yes. It’s a loss-making product. It’s like CSR.
Why did this happen?
There is also a miss guide. At the same time, people think that insuring is just a waste of money. This is the mentality of the people. He has no idea of investing.
Now you don’t even give cash in insurance. Is it possible only to submit the bill?
There is a situation to get money after some incidents in medical. Apart from this, we are also giving cashless. In Nepal, we will be the first for cashless facility in insurance. We are providing cashless facilities from more than 20,000 places in Nepal and India.
Someone pays the bill after treatment. How do you see if such a bill is fake or not?
We monitor it from time to time. If there is any doubt, we will investigate and find out. For this, we have a team, an internal team. Those who look at it.
There is no TPA in Nepal, should it be brought now?
It would have been better if it had been. It is heard that it should be brought soon.
