BimaQuest: The Journal of Insurance, Pension and Management
BimaQuest — formally BimaQuest: The Journal of Insurance, Pension and Management — is the journal of the National Insurance Academy (NIA) in Pune, Maharashtra. Published since 2001, with ISSN 0974-0791, it appears three times a year, in January, May and September, and carries original contributions from academicians and practitioners on insurance, pensions and the management disciplines that surround them. Indexed in the EBSCO database and listed in UGC CARE, and operating a double-blind review process, BimaQuest is India's specialist scholarly journal for the insurance sector — the print forum of the academy that the insurance industry itself founded to train its senior executives and develop its knowledge base.
The National Insurance Academy Behind the Journal
To understand BimaQuest, begin with its publisher. The National Insurance Academy was established on 16 December 1980 in Mumbai, jointly by the Ministry of Finance, Government of India, the Life Insurance Corporation of India, the General Insurance Corporation of India and the four public sector general insurance companies — The New India Assurance Company, National Insurance Company, United India Insurance Company and The Oriental Insurance Company. It was created to be an institute of excellence in learning and research in insurance, pension and allied areas. On 4 June 1990 the academy shifted to Pune, where it occupies a sprawling campus of approximately 32 acres at Balewadi, housing administrative, academic, hostel and residential facilities. The academy describes its vision as becoming a global institution of excellence in learning and research in insurance, pension and allied areas.
Publishing Since 2001, Three Times a Year
BimaQuest has been a publication of the National Insurance Academy since 2001, and by 2020 it had reached its twentieth volume — a May 2020 issue, Volume 20, Issue 2, carried among other work a qualitative study of the work values influencing career choice among millennial officers in India's public sector non-life insurance companies, based on interviews with officers attending training programmes at the academy. The journal is published in the months of January, May and September every year, a three-issue rhythm well suited to a specialist title whose authors are drawn from a relatively small national community of insurance academics and senior practitioners. Authors whose papers are published receive two printed copies, and submissions can be made throughout the year, with a decision typically taking four to six months.
Scope: Insurance, Pensions and Social Security
BimaQuest invites original contributions in the form of articles, research papers, case studies and essays on contemporary topics across a defined set of areas: insurance, pension and social security; the economics of insurance, pension and social security; marketing and consumer behaviour; human resources and organisational development; finance and investment; information technology; risk management; and financial awareness and literacy. It also invites reviews of books published within the last year, or yet to be published, in these areas. The scope is notable for joining two worlds that are often separated: the technical core of insurance and pensions — risk, investment, social security economics — and the management disciplines — marketing, human resources, organisational behaviour, technology — through which insurance organisations actually run. That combination reflects the academy's own dual identity as both an insurance institute and a management school.
Case Studies as a Signature Format
Alongside research papers, BimaQuest actively cultivates case studies as a platform for disseminating management concepts, issues and challenges. Its case guidelines cover insurance in both life and general branches, pension and annuity topics, management subjects including strategy, business ethics, organisational behaviour, management information systems, marketing and consumer behaviour and finance and accounts, and financial inclusion and social security. The journal distinguishes three kinds of cases: field cases based on primary data sourced from organisations; library cases based on secondary sources in the public domain; and experience cases drawn from the experience of a teacher or manager to explain a topic or situation. Only original cases, not previously published or simultaneously submitted elsewhere, are considered, and before publication all authors sign an agreement transferring copyright to the National Insurance Academy as publisher.
Double-Blind Review and Editorial Practice
BimaQuest follows a double-blind review process for shortlisting articles for publication, meaning that neither authors nor reviewers know one another's identities. For a journal whose contributors include serving officers of the very public sector insurers that founded its parent academy, blind review is an important guarantee that papers are judged on merit rather than on the author's institutional seniority. The journal states a typical decision window of four to six months for submissions, and its submission address is maintained through the academy's journal portal. Its editorial standards sit within the framework expected of UGC CARE-listed journals in India, where listing depends on transparent peer review, a named publisher and regular publication — all of which BimaQuest's public journal pages document.
Indexing and Recognition
The journal is indexed in the EBSCO database, one of the principal international aggregators through which university libraries discover and access journal content, and it is indexed in the UGC CARE list used by Indian universities to recognise quality journals for academic career purposes. Indexing matters particularly for a sectoral journal: insurance studies in India are produced not only in insurance institutions but in university commerce and management departments, whose faculty need their work to count within national assessment systems. BimaQuest's EBSCO presence also carries Indian insurance research to international readers — significant for a journal published by an academy that is an associate member of the Federation of Afro-Asian Insurers and Reinsurers and recognised under the Technical Cooperation Scheme of the Colombo Plan for imparting learning.
The Academy's Wider Publishing and Academic Life
BimaQuest is one of two journals the academy publishes periodically. The other, Pravartak, is a quarterly published at the initiative of the students of the academy's Post Graduate Diploma in Management programme, providing a platform to students, practising managers and researchers. The contrast is instructive: Pravartak is the student-driven title, while BimaQuest is the academy's established research journal. Around the journals sits a full academic operation: the academy has been recognised as a doctoral research centre under Savitribai Phule Pune University since 1992 for the faculty of management, its library claims the largest collection of books on insurance and allied subjects in India and subscribes to over a hundred journals and digital sources, and more than 6,500 senior officials attend its management development programmes each year — a ready community of potential BimaQuest authors and readers.
Insurance Education and Industry in India
BimaQuest's existence reflects the scale and structure of Indian insurance. The academy was founded by the state-owned insurers that then dominated the sector, and it continues to serve an industry that now includes private and foreign-partnered insurers alongside the public sector giants, with its training, education, research and consultancy activities providing real-life reference from close association with the industry. Its annual calendar includes the C. D. Deshmukh Memorial Seminar on life insurance themes and the NIA-FAIR international seminar on general insurance. A journal that publishes research on pension economics, consumer behaviour in insurance markets, human resource questions in public sector insurers and financial literacy speaks directly to the policy and management problems of that industry — low insurance penetration, retirement security for an ageing population, and the professional development of a large workforce.
Subscriptions and Access
BimaQuest has maintained a print subscription model at modest, institution-friendly rates: its subscription form lists an annual subscription for the three issues at Rs. 250, a two-year subscription covering six issues at Rs. 500, and a single copy at Rs. 100, with payment by online transfer or by demand draft or at-par cheque in favour of the National Insurance Academy, payable at Pune. Alongside print, the journal maintains its own portal where its aims, submission route and published articles are available, and full texts of published papers circulate through that portal. The combination of inexpensive print subscription and an online presence suits its readership of insurance company libraries, training colleges, university departments and individual officers across India.
BimaQuest Today
Today BimaQuest continues from Pune as the National Insurance Academy's journal of insurance, pension and management, in publication since 2001 and appearing each January, May and September. Double-blind reviewed, EBSCO-indexed and UGC CARE-listed, it remains the dedicated scholarly magazine of Indian insurance — a sector that supports few specialist journals of its own. Its value lies in focus: where general management journals may carry an occasional insurance paper, BimaQuest exists solely for insurance, pensions, risk and social security, written by and for the academicians and practitioners of that world. For readers tracing India's insurance industry through its own literature, from liberalisation-era questions to today's debates on pensions and financial literacy, BimaQuest is the essential Pune title.
