A senior insurance leader has called on Sri Lanka’s insurance industry to move beyond incremental growth and develop low-cost, accessible products aimed at achieving universal coverage across the nation.
WTW’s Head of Life Insurance for India and Sri Lanka, Kunj Behari Maheshwari, made this appeal during the fourth South Asian Actuarial Conference in Colombo last week.
Highlighting the country’s persistently low insurance penetration, Maheshwari urged industry players to think boldly and consider whether citizens should be excluded from coverage simply due to affordability issues.
He proposed innovative approaches such as creating “low ticket size policies,” subsidizing premiums for low-income individuals through funds from larger policyholders, or leveraging investment income to support insurance costs, framing universal coverage as both a critical business opportunity and a social responsibility.
