General Insurance

General Insurance

The total number of general insurers registered with IRDA has gone up to 22, with the registration of SBI General Insurance Company Limited, a joint venture general insurance company promoted by State Bank of India and Insurance Australia Group, Australia, as a general insurer in December 2009. Moreover, L&T General Insurance is readying to launch its operations in the next three to five months.

The Gross Premium underwritten by public sector non-life insurers for the April-December 2009 period posted year-on-year growth of 11.37 per cent as compared to the year-on-year growth of 7.93 per cent posted by private sector non-life insurers. Overall, the non-life insurance sector grew 9.95 per cent in April-December 2009, compared to the corresponding period last year. According to IRDA data, out of the US$ 5.46 billion premium underwritten by the industry during the April-December 2009 period, US$ 3.24 billion came from the four public sector companies as compared to US$ 2.91 billion during the same period in 2008.

Moreover, in the 2010-11 budget, Finance Minister, Mr Pranab Mukherjee, has decided to roll back the government’s decision to tax the unrealised gains of non-life insurance companies. “The appreciation in the value of investments, being in the nature of unrealized gain is not taken into account for determining profit or loss of non-life insurance business as per the IRDA regulations. It is, therefore, proposed that the unrealized gains due to appreciation in the value of investments will not be included in the total income,” according to the budget documents.

According to data from the IRDA (Summary Reports of Motor Data of Public and Private Sector Insurers - 2008-09), in 2008-09, nearly 30 million vehicles were registered and a total premium worth US$ 2.03 billion was collected.