SPJIMR team wins SBI Life’s national case competition
November 6, 2025
A team from SPJIMR has been crowned national champion at SBI Life IdeationX 2.0, beating over 10,000 teams from 150+ business schools across India to claim the top prize of ₹10 lakhs.
Pritish Wadhwa, Stuti Rajesh Shah, and Eshan Sharma presented a three-pillar growth strategy to help SBI Life achieve the IRDAI’s ambitious goal of ‘insurance for all’ by 2047, addressing a critical challenge — how to expand life insurance penetration in a country where millions remain uninsured.
The winning proposal
The team’s innovative approach rested on three interconnected pillars:
- PAN-Plus: Automatically bundles new PAN card applicants with a zero-balance SBI account and PMJJBY cover, onboarding over 40 million lives annually through existing government touchpoints.
- Evolve: Reimagines insurance for Gen Z and gig workers through a mobile-first, flexible policy that allows customers to pause and resume premiums, access instant policy loans, and build ULIP savings suited to irregular incomes.
- Distributorship 2.0: Digitally empowers SBI Life’s 3,23,000 agents with AI tools and a multilingual WhatsApp Mitra to reach semi-urban and rural customers while lowering acquisition costs.
From classroom to boardroom
The grand finale in Goa brought together senior leadership from SBI Life, including Amit Jhingran, Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer, with Olympic gold medallist Abhinav Bindra as the chief guest. The event was covered by CNBC-TV18, with highlights aired nationally.
Pritish, who was named best presenter, shared: “Winning SBI Life IdeationX 2.0 for SPJIMR was truly special. It taught me how the insurance industry balances innovation with regulation. Being named best presenter reminded me that clarity and empathy make ideas matter.”
For Stuti, the experience revealed something fundamental about the sector: “Winning this case competition showed me why insurance matters on an ordinary day. My biggest learning was translating complexity into choices people can actually act on. I’m walking away with a bias for clarity and a respect for constraints—they make ideas real.”
Eshan reflected on the moment their idea resonated: “Proud to bring the top spot to SPJIMR. The standout moment was when a senior official said they’d take our idea back to IRDAI — that confirmed we’d understood the real problem and proposed something genuinely workable.”
The win reinforces SPJIMR’s growing reputation for developing solutions that bridge business strategy with social impact, demonstrating how thoughtful innovations can make essential financial services more accessible and inclusive for millions.
