India and the GCC corridor: The next growth engine for AI-led insurance transformation

The opportunity, he argues, starts with the market itself — India's insurance penetration still lags well behind the global average, and IRDAI's “Insurance for All by 2047” goal means insurers need to fix affordability, claims experience, and trust at scale, not just sell more policies. Singh cites outside research suggesting AI could unlock billions of dollars in annual value for the sector, with early adopters already seeing double-digit gains in underwriting efficiency, servicing cost, and claims payout speed.

He points to India's GCCs as where much of that value is actually getting built, citing global insurers standing up AI-focused centers in Hyderabad and Bengaluru with underwriting, claims, fraud detection, and customer experience work embedded from day one rather than bolted onto legacy systems. He also flags the emergence of agentic AI — systems that can plan and execute multi-step workflows with limited supervision — as an adoption wave already well underway among Indian GCCs, alongside regulatory moves like Bima Sugam that are meant to make the underlying digital infrastructure keep pace.