Page 7 - Insurance Times December 2022

H1FY23, and by 17 per cent to Rs.
NHAI may hold officials liable for accidents
5,185 crore in Q2FY23.
The National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) has said that it will hold of-
ficials liable for any fatal or serious accidents that occur as a result of poor
Fake Insurance racket
road engineering works.
busted in kolkata
In a circular, the NHAI has taken a serious view towards the dereliction of
The CID's Special Operations Group has
duty by the representative of NHAI/IE/AE involved in the process of issuance
arrested eight people for running an
of the provisional certificate, thereby jeopardising the safety of users in utter
allegedly fake BPO in Kolkata at
disregard of the policy guidelines and provisions of the contract agreement.
Baguiati, offering fake insurance
Further, the Highway Authority of India said it has noticed that provisional
schemes. The accused also tricked
completion certificates were being issued keeping safety works such as road
people in the name of installing mobile
marking, road signages, and end treatment of crash barriers in the punch
towers.
list. compromising the safety of users but also bringing a bad name to NHAI
A CID officer said the accused targeted
upon the occurrence of accidents/ fatalities, it added. The pending items are
people from across India. When their
put under a category called a punch list.
targets agreed to take insurances, they
The NHAI has directed that all road safety works on the project highway
were asked to deposit a specific
should be completed in all respects prior to issuing a provisional certificate.
amount in advance as insurance fee
Recently, Union minister Nitin Gadkari attributed some of the road accidents and processing charges for the ex-
to faulty/incomplete project reports. He asserted that companies need proper pected loan amount.
training for preparing detailed project reports for the construction of high-
After getting the "charges", the ac-
ways and other roads.
cused neither provided loan nor re-
funded the people, police said. "They
ICICI Lombard's Q2 PAT The net profit includes reversal of tax posed as employees of a major com-
provision of Rs. 128 crore, excluding
jumps 32% to Rs. 591 pany," said an officer.
which the rise in PAT would have been
crore 27 per cent higher for H1FY23 and up Premiums of Non-life In-
3 per cent sequentially, the company
ICICI Lombard General Insurance
said in a release. surance Companies up
posted a profit after tax of Rs. 591
crore for Q2FY23, up 32 per cent YoY Profitability for ICICI Lombard was 15.5% in October
and also higher than Rs. 349 crore in largely led by strong growth in the The non-life insurance industry
the previous quarter. For the six- insurer's gross direct premium income bounced back in October, as premiums
month period ended September 30, and improvement in the combined ra- grew at 15.51 per cent year-on-year
the net profit was up 47 per cent at tio. Gross direct premium income grew (YoY) and marked a change from a dis-
Rs. 940 crore. 23 per cent YoY to Rs. 10,555 crore in appointing number in September.

The Insurance Times December 2022 7