ICICI Lombard’s Drive thru rally emphasises helmet usage amongst child pillion riders

India CSR News Network

NEW DELHI:  ICICI Lombard, a private general insurance company, conducted a ‘Drive Thru’ campaign for children as part of its ‘Ride to Safety’ initiative.

Nitin Gadkari, Honorable Union Minister for Road Transport, Highways and Shipping, and Bhargav Dasgupta, MD & CEO, ICICI Lombard, flagged off the event which aims to raise awareness about road-safety measures among two-wheeler owners with children riding as pillion riders.

Twenty children below the age of 14 lose their lives on Indian roads every day. Two-wheelers alone account for around 25 per cent of road accidents in the country, the highest amongst all vehicles, of which 7 per cent involve children. According to a report by the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways, Delhi was the ‘Accident Capital’ of India in 2015 — losing 1,622 people to deadly mishaps. Two of the main reasons for these accidents were lack of awareness and non-adherence to the basic rule of safety — wearing a helmet.

These grim statistics prompted ICICI Lombard to launch its unique CSR initiative ‘Ride to Safety’.  This program is focused on making roads safer for children riding as pillion riders on two- wheelers. The company adopted a two pronged strategy , one to bring out a behavioral change in parents and children with regard to road safety through customized direct contact programs and secondly by distributing child specific ISI marked helmets to children. Since the inception of the program in September 2015, the company has contacted over 35,000 parents and their children. In an important milestone, ICICI Lombard has distributed 24000 ISI marked helmets to children.

Speaking on the occasion, ICICI Lombard MD & CEO Bhargav Dasgupta said, “Ride to Safety campaign is part of our vision to contribute to the community at large. This unique CSR program emphasises that children as pillion riders incorporate the road safety habit of wearing a helmet from a young age. Our aim is to see each and every two wheeler riding child with a helmet. We have already distributed 24,000 child-specific ISI-mark helmets to children. We are committed to this initiative and will be distributing 1,00,000 helmets in the next 5 years to children riding two wheelers as pillion riders.

Further to gauge the impact of the program, ICICI Lombard conducted a study by re-connecting the parents of those children who were provided with helmets. The study reveals interesting insights.

• 78%  of the participants said, they were very happy with the workshops
• 76% of respondents accepted a change in their outlook towards road safety following the direct contact programs conducted by ICICI Lombard
• 78% of the participants said it was important for the pillion rider/kids to wear a helmet

• 90% respondents in Delhi felt it was important when compared to respondents in Mumbai and Pune

• When it came to usage of helmets, following the workshop, nearly all of the participants’ kids were wearing helmets while riding a two wheeler. This has increased five times compared to the earlier figure which was 27%
• 70% of the participants felt the initiative had a positive impact and had encouraged other kids to wear a helmet when riding a bike
• 78% respondents believe such workshops would contribute towards reducing head injuries and should be conducted more frequently
• 85% respondents are happy with the quality of material used
• 80% of the participants are happy with the color of the helmets reveals the study

ICICI Lombard GIC Ltd. is a joint venture between ICICI Bank Limited and Fairfax Financial Holdings Limited, a Canada-based diversified financial services company engaged in general insurance, reinsurance, insurance claims management and investment management. ICICI Lombard GIC Ltd. is one of the leading private sector general insurance companies in India with a Gross Written Premium (GWP) of Rs 83.07 billion for the year ended March 31, 2016. The company issued over 15.80 million policies and settled over 1.62 million claims as on March 31, 2016.

ICICI Lombard General Insurance has been declared the ‘Most Innovative Health Insurance Company of the Year’ at ‘The 2016 Frost & Sullivan India Best Practices Awards’.  It has also been conferred with the Association for Talent Development (ATD) Best Award 2016 for the fourth time. ICICI Lombard has won the ‘Claim Service Leader’ (General Insurance – Large category) and ‘Technology Innovation’ Awards at the Indian Insurance Awards, 2016. The company received the ‘Claim Service Leader’ award for its excellent track record in claim settlement across product segments. It was given the ‘Technology Innovation’ recognition for its technology driven initiatives especially the ‘RiskInspect’ App, a mobile application developed to capture risk information of low sum insured property risk. ICICI Lombard General Insurance has been adjudged the ‘Non-life Insurer of the Year’ at the coveted Outlook Money Awards, 2015. Non-life Insurance as a category has been included for the first time at the Outlook Money awards, which were introduced more than a decade ago. It is a matter of pride that ICICI Lombard has been chosen as the Winner in the introductory year of the award category.