Chola MS sees gross premium touching Rs 1,700 cr this fiscal

Chola MS General Insurance Company hopes to cross the Rs 150-crore mark in terms of operating profit and the Rs 2,500-crore mark in terms of gross premium in the next two years.

The company, which clocked a gross premium of Rs 1,350 crore last year, is expected to touch Rs 1,700 crore in the current financial year, said S.S. Gopalarathnam, Managing Director of the company.

In the last two years, the company has been generating positive cash flow, he said.

Chola MS is a 74:26 joint venture between the Murugappa Group and Mitsui Sumitomo Insurance company of Japan. At a press conference organised here today, to commemorate the company’s 10{+t}{+h} anniversary, Murugappa group Chairman, A. Vellayan, said in the last 10 years the company has been growing at a compounded annual growth rate of 65 per cent. It currently commands 2.5 per cent share of the general insurance market, and is among the top seven private sector general insurance companies in the country.

With sharpened focus, it would expand its retail health insurance portfolio from the current Rs 50 crore to Rs 500 crore over the next year. It also aims to increase its share in the property business.

According to Gopalarathnam, thanks to its Mitsui tie-up, Chola MS, with 40 per cent share, is the market leader as far as business from Japanese companies in India is concerned. Approximately 6 per cent of the company’s business comes from Japanese and Korean companies in India, and “this is expected to grow in the months to come”, he said.

Besides, it gets 9 per cent of its business from the (Murugappa) group’s other corporate entities such as TI Cycles, EID Parry, Coromandel International and Cholamandalam Finance. This contribution is expected to go beyond 14 per cent in the next couple of years.

 

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