Insurers hopes to maintain growth momentum

The general insurance industry hopefully will maintain its current growth momentum in 2017-18, having posted a 21.95 %  growth in gross direct premium underwritten in the April-June quarter of this financial year. “The first quarter has been good for the general insurance industry and we are confident that going forward, we would be able to maintain the growth momentum this year,” said K. Sanath Kumar, chairman and managing director of National Insurance Company. A significant part of the growth is expected to emerge through digitisation of database of insurance companies, linking of insurance policies with common identifiers such as Aadhar, vehicle registration number and sharing of such data among different agencies within a defined regulatory framework. Along with this, the flow of household savings into financial assets and the Centre’s initiative on crop insurance will contribute to the growth. “The industry believes that a 20 per cent growth can be sustainable even in the coming years,” Kumar said The Non life companies have recorded a gross direct premium of Rs 33,302.89 crore in the first three months of this fiscal compared with Rs 27,309.59 crore a year ago, according to data compiled by the Insurance Regulatory Authority of India (IRDAI). Gross direct premium income underwritten in June was Rs 11,512.40 crore, up over 35 % from Rs 8,521.28 crore a year ago. The data showed private sector general insurers’ gross premium income stood at Rs 14,986.85 crore in the April-June quarter, up about 28 per cent from Rs 11,738.98 crore in the corresponding period last year. For June, their gross premium income was at Rs 5,010 crore, up 38 per cent from Rs 3,626.55 crore in the same month last year. The same for public general insurers, including specialised PSU insurers, in the June quarter was Rs 16,864.81 crore – a 16 per cent growth from Rs 14,562.86 crore a year ago, the IRDAI report said. Only in June, the gross direct premium income of public insurers stood at Rs 5,980.81 crore, up 32 per cent from Rs 4,533.33 crore in the year-ago month. Standalone private health insurers’ gross direct premium income underwritten was at Rs 1,451.23 crore in the April-June period, which was a growth of 44 per cent from Rs 1,007.75 crore in the year-ago period.