About

What are the most significant cases and/or transactions that your legal team has been involved with in the last two years?

Regarding litigations, the team manages around 3,000 litigations across India before multiple forums including the Supreme Court. The highest stake involved in a single litigation is Rs 850 crore and the largest recovery effected is 3.5 crore. Busting insurance fraud cartels through legal actions, focussed filing of criminal complaints against claimants, intermediaries and employees involved in fraudulent death claims has seen more than 200% improvement. Currently we are involved in advising the business on the recovery or ring fencing of around 800 crores of investments in various housing finance companies. For real estate transactions, the team is managing lease arrangements for around 600 premises spread across India and 14 premises owned by Bajaj Allianz Life Insurance. Regarding commercial transactions, the team manage the entire vendor transactions of the company across all verticals. We draft and negotiate around 600 contracts annually for all verticals of Bajaj Allianz Life Insurance. The team successfully structured and negotiated a complex software license, customisation and maintenance agreement involving four entities, with the license term being perpetual and customisation spanning 10 years. The team also negotiates investment transactions, including direct equity investments and alternative investment fund investments. Regarding operational, HR advisory and insurance product review, We provide various advisories to the operations function, including but not limited to claim opinions, policy servicing, operational processes (interpreting applicable regulations) and customer communication templates. The legal team supports the HR function in various activities including disciplinary action and advice on HR policies. The recent implementation of the Supreme Court’s interpretation on the components of an employee’s salary that needs to be considered for Provident Fund Contributions is an example where the legal team collaborated extensively with the HR department to regularise our current practises while keeping employee dissonance (on account of a reduced take home) to a bare minimum. We also review and provide legal inputs on product related documents which include policy document, sales literature, file and use documents, and training materials. For the past two years we have been hosting a governance themed conference for the insurance industry in Pune. It has participants from almost all life insurers and most of the general insurers. The chief guest last year was a senior IRDAI Official. This has established Bajaj Allianz Life Insurance as an entity which champions good governance and customer interest.

What recent political, economic or regulatory changes in India have impacted your company and the team the most?

The new government formation has given a sense of overall stability. The expectation is that this should unleash consumption along with capital expenditure, thereby putting the economy on a fast track mode. It is our intent to capitalise on this momentum and to benefit from the overall growth in the economy. Regulatory impacts include Section 45 of the Insurance Act, an amendment to the Aadhar Act, limiting Aadhar authentication to banks for direct benefit transfer and telecom companies as well as the new product regulations by IRDAI which required our entire products (around 56) being amended. Legal support would be required for identifying the changes, amending policy documentation/sales literature.

What will be the main focus for the company in the next 12 months and how does the team intend to assist with this?

The company’s focus concerns the use of data to drive differentiation, innovation and customer centricity. To align the team to this we will ensure adherence to extant and future data protection regulations by recommending process design and support by providing necessary documentation including policies governing the use, storage and destruction of personal information.

How has the team harnessed technology to improve output or drive efficiencies?

We use a contract management tool that is self-service and has reduced cost, audit trail and record retention to the delight of customers. We also utilise a litigation management tool for an increase in winning ratio, precision and effectiveness in follow-ups and auctioning whilst reducing risks. Finally, we use an anti-money laundering and compliance tool for precision in monitoring, and ensuring compliances and reduced risks.

Can you sum up the team culture/ethos?

Collaborative, high performing, winning and talent. We are collaborative by practising the core values of the company, in letter and spirit, and ensuring a highly ethical, transparent and fair work culture. We are high performing and this is driven by empowering the team to get involved in challenging assignments with passion, accountability and ownership. Our winning mentality is facilitated by encouraging the team with rewards and recognition and rendering proper guidance, encouragement and state of art infra structure and tools. Finally our focus on talent is driven by tight recruitment and upskilling through training and coaching sessions.
Focus on… Currently, proceedings for debt recovery of financial service providers including non-banking financial companies (including housing finance companies), banks and insurers among others, cannot be initiated under the Bankruptcy Code 2016 (IBC). This lacunae is impacting the recovery by insurers, mutual funds and banks of their investments in housing finance companies like Dewan Housing Finance. This calls for an immediate amendment to the IBC Act.