Page 8 - Insurance Times July 2023

Rs 6,312.50 crore from Rs 2,005.74 months. These include infusing technol- Uttarakhand and Karnataka, the
crore in the preceding financial year. ogy and reducing crop insurance busi- sources added.
ness risk.
The solvency Ratio of the company in-
Do not revise third party
creased to 2.61 from 1.96 at the end Besides, a new entrant Kshema Gen-
of March 2022. eral Insurance has also been motor insurance: MoRTH
empanelled and is bidding for Kharif
The total Assets of the company rose Government has proposed not to revise
2023 in Madhya Pradesh, said a senior
to Rs 1,57,124.60 crore against Rs the annual motor third party (TP) pre-
official in Agriculture Ministry. In 2019-
1,44,887.37 crore in the previous year. mium and even suggested a reduction
20, these private insurance companies
of premium in a couple of segments in
had opted out of the flagship PMFBY
PM crop insurance scheme FY 2023-24, which will be now imple-
scheme due to high claims ratios in the
mented from August 2023.
back in favour as insurers States where they operated in the pre-
The Ministry of Road Transport and
return to do biz vious year, leading to losses from the
Highways (MoRTH) came out with the
business. However, they continued
Insurance companies such as ICICI new draft notification on the premium
with the empanelment in last four
Lombard, Tata AIG, Cholamandalam for mandatory third-party motor cover
years.
and Oriental Insurance have returned on June 14 and has preferred to retain
to offer cover under PM Fasal Bima Oriental Insurance, who quit last year, the same level premiums in most of
Yojana(PMFBY) this year. All these four has also returned in 2023 with its par- the categories. While the status-quo
insurance companies had quit crop in- ticipation in the bidding process in on the premium for a mandatory mo-
surance business four years ago, citing Maharashtra, the sources said. Both tor TP in FY 2023-24 may be a good
unviable claims amount. These compa- Tata AIG and ICICI Lombard have par- news for the vehicle owners and auto
nies have opted to return as several ticipated in bids in Maharashtra, too. industry, the decision has given a jolt
steps have been taken in the last few Cholamandalam is said to have bid in to the general insurers who usually
demand a hefty hike in premium in this
segment to compensate the rising
Odisha train accident: Govt. seeks data to shell out
claims leading to the underwriting
insurance claims losses for the companies.
The government has asked insurance companies to immediately report about
In 2022-23, the motor TP premium had
their exposures in terms of coverage and claim payments towards the vic-
gone up by 14.44 per cent to Rs 49,508
tims of the triple train accident in Odisha on June 2.
crore from Rs 43,260 crore in 2021-22.
The Department of Financial Services (DFS) has asked the General Insurance The ministry takes data provided by the
Council, the official representative body of general insurers, and Life Insur- Insurance Information Bureau of India
ance Council, the official representative life insurers, to collect data from their (IIBI) into consideration while arriving at
members about their exposures to the accident victims. The government is the Motor TP premium rates.
planning to shell out the insurance amount through three government
The claims paid data in respect of each
schemes.
of the accident years starting from the
According to insurance sources, insurers are responsible for three kind of in- year 2011-12 up to 2021-22 has been
surance coverage. General insurers, as part of government financial inclu- considered. Besides, gross written pre-
sion programme, provide some basic cover under the Pradhan Mantri miums for the FY 2011-12 to 2021-22
Suraksha Bima Yojana (PMSBY) through the banks. have been considered. The status quo
on TP rates will impact the cash flow
Besides, Indian Railway Catering and Tourism Corporation (IRCTC) provides
of insurers, said an official.
optional personal accident cover to the passengers of Indian Railways at a
minimal cost - 35 paise - since FY 2021-22 while buying tickets online.
Zurich Insurance eyes 51%
IRCTC floats a bidding process and selects couple of general insurers every
of Kotak's general insur-
year for providing this cover and, in FY22, had covered over 16 crore passen-
gers who paid Rs 6.56 crore of premium. One of the insurers for IRCTC's pas- ance arm
sengers, SBI General Insurance has said it is dealing with any claims expedi-
Zurich Insurance Group is in talks to
tiously and all assistance are being provided to their needy policy holders.
buy up to 51% of Kotak General Insur-
8 July 2023 The Insurance Times