Page 5 - Insurance Times August 2020

General Insurance News

Express Group acquires ergies with our media business which Kozhikode airport, with the public sec-
now reaches more than 140M unique tor Indian insurance consortium led by
insurance web aggregator
users/month. With low insurance pen- New India Assurance - which reinsured
My Insurance Club etration in India, this space offers the risk abroad - not getting affected

The Indian Express Group announced huge opportunity for growth. As a much.
its entry into insurance web aggrega- media and marketing organisation our Air India, which has 170 aircraft, has
tion space by acquiring 100 per cent skills in building a strong and trusted taken an insurance policy that includes
stake in My Insurance Club. While the brand will work to the advantage of aircraft or hull and liability for third
deal was signed earlier this year, it got MyInsuranceClub to enable it to be- party and passengers. Air India
concluded recently after receiving the come a significant player in this busi- Express's aircraft is reinsured for
approval of the regulator. ness, and be a first step for us to di- around Rs 375 crore and Air India will
versify our revenue streams beyond recover this amount from reinsurers as
As an insurance web aggregator, sell-
advertising." the plane has been totally damaged.
ing both life and non-life insurance
products, My Insurance Club (MIC) is Yohannan said, "This acquisition offers This will be one of Air India's largest
expected to benefit from the reach of two benefits… Firstly, for any insurance insurance claims. Air India had paid
The Indian Express Group, which is one business to succeed, trust plays a cru- around $30 million for the renewal on
of the world's largest digital news cial role. With brand "Indian Express" April 1. The airline has taken policies
groups reaching over 140 million users/ on board, we hope to solve that prob- covering the aircraft or hull and liabil-
month. lem to a large extent. Secondly, the ity for third party and passengers. It
group has very large digital footprint has to also pay the passengers who
An IRDAI-licensed insurance web
in multiple regional languages. This have died and have been injured from
aggregator, MIC has been an early
can be a great catalyst for an online- insurance claims.
entrant into the insurance comparison
only business like ours. We are very
business in India. Despite the change New India-led consortium retained just
excited in this new phase of our entre-
in the ownership, MIC founders Deepak 5 per cent and the balance value of the
preneurial journey."
Yohannan (CEO) and Manoj Aswani risk has been reinsured with Indian
(COO) will continue to run and operate Reinsurers to pay out over reinsurer GIC Re - 5 per cent obliga-
the business under the new sharehold- tory cession - and 90 per cent with glo-
ers and will report to Sanjay Sindhwani 90% of crashed Air India bal reinsurers with the lead under-
- Digital CEO, Indian Express Group. claim writer being AIG.
Industry participants say, in this case,
Anant Goenka, executive director of Global reinsurers will have to shell out
total loss claim settlement will take
The Indian Express Group, said, "We over 90 per cent of the insured value
place as the plane can't be repaired.
liked the space and the people who are of the Air India plane that was de-
running the company, plus we saw syn- stroyed in the accident at the Sources said the survey exercise for
The Insurance Times, August 2020 5