Case Study:- Common Service Centre and Universal Sompo General Insurance Company (USGIC) Tie-Up

Abstract

The Indian rural market has emerged as an important growth engine in the India. Rural economy is critical for the Indian economy, especially for the small and marginal farmers. More than twothirds of India's population lives in rural areas and despite of having many income source, profit for the rural population are highly unpredictable. In case of agriculture and farming, the production rate is precarious due to the constant changes in the climatic conditions that affect the
crop. Even non-agriculture income sources like poultry, cattle etc., may not give the expected outcome because of the effect of failing health due to epidemic or endemic diseases. In such cases securing a farmer's assets financially will reduce bumps of losses of a farmer, which is possible only by "insurance". However a benefit of the range of products sold by all insurers is not reaching to the customers residing in semi-urban and rural areas. This is mainly because of the
concentration of brokers, Agents in and around big cities. Therefore to increase the penetration of insurance in semi urban and rural areas, the presence of intermediary who represents the customer is very vital, to increase insurance penetration in the country. Hence in order to reach benefits to rural people at the time of distress, IRDAI has allowed insurance companies to use licensed Common Service Centres (CSCs) as a distribution network in rural areas. Common
Services Centres (CSC) in general are multiple-services-single-point model for providing facilities for multiple transactions at a single geographical location. The main purpose of these centres is to provide a physical facility for delivery of e-Services of the Government of India to the rural and remote locations where availability of computers and Internet is currently negligible or mostly absent.