HDFC ERGO organizes First HDFC ERGO Insurance Awareness Award Junior – Quiz for the GenZ

by Shrutee K/DNS

Mumbai, September 28^th, 2016: HDFC ERGO General Insurance Company, India’s leading non-life insurer, organized a novel quiz competition, the HDFC ERGO Insurance Awareness Award Junior – Quiz, for the school students of Mumbai. The quiz, conducted on the 14^th Foundation Day of HDFC ERGO, is a first-of-its-kind, which witnessed G. D. Somani Memorial School emerge as the winner to bag the prize with Rs. 150,000 and Smt. Sulochanadevi Singhania School claiming the title of first runner ups to take home prizes worth Rs. 75,000. The HDFC ERGO Insurance Awareness Award Junior – Quiz is a learning initiative to develop the skillset of insurance among the school students and prepare them with the responsibility to manage the unforeseen risks of the future.

The penetration of general insurance in India is about 0.7% only, as against the world average of 2.77 %. Given the low penetration, in any catastrophic event, the insurance losses are only in the range of approximately 7% of the total economic losses. This low penetration causes major hardship in any rehabilitation effort. This is largely due to the very low awareness about insurance and insurance products. Therefore, taking a step forward, we have reached out to the young minds, who are the future of India, through the HDFC ERGO Insurance Awareness Award Junior – Quiz. The idea of the Quiz is to build the awareness on insurance in the form of a challenge that would make it fun and easy for the students to understand. The quiz was structured in two rounds – the Semi-final elimination round, wherein 18 schools participated, and the Grand Finale. Fighting their way through the semi-final round, 4 teams paved their way to the finals to claim the title of the first edition of the HDFC ERGO Insurance Awareness Award Junior – Quiz 2016.

Talking about the HDFC ERGO Insurance Awareness Award Junior - Quiz, Mr. Deepak Parekh, Chairman, HDFC Ltd. & HDFC ERGO General Insurance said, “Given that today’s generation is inquisitive and open to explore complex concepts, we believe knowledge of insurance can be imbibed by school students of standard 8^th & 9^th. The HDFC ERGO Insurance Awareness Award Junior – Quiz is an innovative initiative, designed to help students understand the concept of risks and insurance in an exciting and engaging manner at an early stage in life. It was an overwhelming experience to witness this battle of wits amongst the young and bright minds.”

Speaking at the Grand Finale of the HDFC ERGO Insurance Awareness Award Junior - Quiz, Mr. Ritesh Kumar, Managing Director & CEO, HDFC ERGO General Insurance said, “It is our constant endeavor to be a knowledge centric organization and contribute in the “Insurance Awareness Drive”. Hence, we took a step forward and reached out to the young minds in renowned schools of Mumbai through our new initiative “HDFC ERGO Insurance Awareness Award Junior – Quiz”. We aspire to inculcate the insurance knowledge amongst the young generation. We are glad to receive an overwhelming response from schools and this has encouraged us to scale up the ambit of this initiative to pan India for next year.”

The quiz was held in phases; wherein the best schools in Mumbai were invited to nominate a team of three students for the preliminary rounds in the first phase. As part of this phase, Insurance Awareness townhalls were conducted by HDFC ERGO representatives, at the participating schools, explaining the concept of Insurance. The students were also provided booklets on Insurance to help them understand the topic in greater detail, during the townhalls. After a rigorous screening process, 18 schools were qualified for the semi-finals. These 18 schools had to slug it out in an exciting semi-final round, held on 18^th September 2016 at the company’s headquarters, of which four schools (Smt. Sulochanadevi Singhania School; Villa Theresa High School; G.D Somani Memorial School; S.I.E.S. High School) made it to the finals.

The Grand Finale was hosted on 27^th September 2016, commemorating the Foundation Day of HDFC ERGO. The grand finale was full of action with three engaging, entertaining and nail-biting rounds of quizzing, which included straight question rounds and the buzzer rounds. Each team put up a whole hearted effort but G. D. Somani Memorial School won the first prize with a reward of Rs.1,50,000 as prize money, with each participating student claiming Rs. 50,000 and the school receiving a sum of Rs 50,000 in donation as token of goodwill from HDFC ERGO. Smt. Sulochanadevi Singhania School, took the title of first runners up by a close margin to take home the reward of Rs 75,000, with each participant claiming Rs 25,000 and a sum of Rs 25,000 as donation for the school.

While the winning team & runner up teams were rewarded with prize money and huge recognition, the winning moment was the fact that this initiative was a huge success!

Enthused with the overwhelming response to the first ever HDFC ERGO Insurance Awareness Award Junior amongst schools in Mumbai, HDFC ERGO is geared up to take this “PAN INDIA“ in the next year.

About HDFC ERGO:

HDFC ERGO offers complete range of general insurance products ranging from Motor, Health, Travel, Home and Personal Accident in the retail space and customized products like Property, Marine and Liability Insurance in the corporate space. HDFC ERGO is expanding its network across the country and is today present in 108 branches spread across 91 cities with an employee base of over 2000 professionals. The Company also has a wide distribution network comprising of brokers, retail and corporate agents, bank assurance besides its own direct sales force.