India, Aug. 19 -- Ever since its inception, the insurance industry has managed to convince regulators and policy makers that insurance is a push product. The established narrative is that insurance, both life and health, needs very high sales commissions to make reluctant people buy it. The high-commission, no-accountability push model has proved to be unsuccessful with stagnating penetration and rising consumer complaints. The current model is clearly not working. India needs a market structure that turns this push product into a pull one - where consumers see the merit of insurance and the sales network facilitates and services a suitable product.

Despite decades of high-cost distribution, insurance penetration remains stubbornly low -...