Insurance firms contribute Rs 900 crore to nuclear pool: G Srinivasan
New India Assurance, the country's largest general insurer, posted a 31% increase in net profit to Rs 1,431 crore for fiscal 2014-15. The premiums of company grew 12.2% to Rs 16,050 crore. In an interview, G Srinivasan, chairman and managing director, tells Manju AB that the nuclear insurance pool, which has been set up to take care of civil liabilities arising out of nuclear accidents, is almost ready, and the company has set aside Rs 200 crore for the pool.
What is the progress on the nuclear insurance pool?This is the first time that nuclear insurance pool is being thought of in the country. It is still in the process of being finalised. It is being administered by the General Insurance Corporation (GIC), which also contributes a large capacity, and all the public sector insurers and now some private sector players like ICICI Lombard have also joined. We are a major player in this. Under the Nuclear Civil Liability Act, the total liability required is Rs 1,500 crore. The public sector insurance companies have contributed Rs 750 crore, and today I believe the pool has a corpus of Rs 900 crore and the government will contribute the remaining Rs 600 crore.New India Assurance has increased the insurance premiums on group health insurance plans by 10- 15%. Why is there such a steep increase?It is not an across-the-board increase. The increase depends on the claims from the clients. If the claim ratios are higher the premiums have gone up faster. The 15% rise may be in cases where the claim ratios are pretty high. For the retail segment, we have left the rates untouched. The last revision was in 2013. So the premiums for the common man have been the same. Motor and health insurance will be focus. We keep the retail insurance rates steady for a period of three years. Only 3% of the population will have a householders insurance. We are coming out with an innovative product. We have filed it with the Insurance Regulatory Development Authority, and probably in a month or two we will be able to launch it.Of the total premium collection of Rs 16,050 crore, how much is from corporate and retail segments?This year 35% of the premium collected was from the corporate segment and 65% from retail. In the retail segment, there is a lot of under-penetration in householders policy, health insurance, property insurance, automobile insurance and so on. The companies are all taking these covers but the need for this is yet to seep into the retail customer. We are increasing the agent network by 10,000, taking the total strength to 80,000 and one-man micro offices will increase by 250 to 1,450 by the end of the financial year. The Pradhan Mantri Bima Yojana will help in selling accident cover to all the account holders. Any savings account holder can take this insurance cover of Rs 2 lakh.