Page 6 - Insurance Times November 2021

300. Similarly, a fitness renewal certifi- cent in FY21. However, in the current lakh children in Ghana, Kenya and
cate for a bus or truck older than 15 financial year (till August), the total pre- Malawi as part of a pilot programme
years will cost Rs 12,500 instead of Rs mium for the sector has jumped by 33.6 since 2019.
1,500, and for old medium goods or percent, making it the second fastest
passenger motor vehicles, the cost will after personal accident business, eclips- The WHO endorsement paves the way
be Rs 10,000. ing heavyweights, motor and health for its use outside the pilot programme,
in all areas where malaria is widely
insurance. prevalent. But RTS,S/AS01, known by
SBI General Insurance ex-
"The market is very competitive, but its brand name Mosquirix, is considered
pects 20% growth in FY22 the tenders are now coming at a rapid only the first step towards effective

SBI General Insurance is expecting close pace," said a senior marine insurance immunisation of the global population.
to 20 per cent growth in business in specialist at one of the state-owned in- RTS,S/AS01 is able to prevent severe
FY22 backed by a steady demand for surers. cases in only 30% of cases; the quest for
health insurance products and an im- The energy trade is fraught with the more effective vaccines is still under-
provement in motor insurance starting risks of spillage and natural catastro- way.
third quarter of this fiscal. phes like hurricanes. Despite that, in-
In the first half (April-September), the surance companies are offering almost Underwriting losses fall,
non-life insurer had witnessed 14 per the same premium rates, banking on profits jump for general
cent growth in gross direct premium high volumes to make up for them. In insurers
underwritten to Rs. 4,129 crore, as September, almost all the refineries
compared with Rs. 3,620 crore in the floated three-month tenders for insur- Despite paying a huge sum as claims
same period last year, as per data avail- ance rates to which all the major un- and facing other challenges and con-
able on the IRDAI website. derwriters have responded. The low straints triggered by the Covid pan-
demic throughout the fiscal, the gen-
According to Prakash Chandra Kandpal, rates are significant as there has been eral insurance industry has seen its net
MD & CEO, SBI General, the non-life a hardening of premium for global cargo profit rise almost 300 per cent year-on-
industry has come back to the pre-Covid insurance, especially in the latter half year to Rs 3,868 crore and underwrit-
level and has clocked a growth of of calendar year 2020, a trend which ing losses decline in FY21.
around 13 per cent in the first half of has continued into 2021. Global marine
this fiscal. "The industry is estimated to underwriting premiums for 2020 grew Two dozen general insurance players
grow by around 15 per cent during the by 6.1 per cent to $30 billion year-on- including four public sector companies,
current fiscal driven mainly by health year. five stand-alone health players and two
and motor. Though there may be some Offshore energy insurance accounts for specialised players - Agriculture Insur-
challenge for motor due to chip issue, ance Company (AIC) and Export Credit
12.1 per cent of the total marine cargo
Q3 should be good for motor insurance. Guarantee Corporation (ECGC) - had
business as per figures released by In-
We (at SBI General) expect to grow by made losses of Rs 1,403 crore in FY20,
ter - national Union of Marine Insurance
around 20 per cent. The key areas of as per an analysis based on data from
(IUMI), the global organisation which
focus for us will be health, motor, SME General Insurance Council. The
tracks the sector.
and rural," Kandpal said. industry's total underwriting losses fell
17.24 per cent to Rs 19,416 crore in
Malaria and the vaccine the period.
Cargo Insurance premiums
hunt While the industry saw massive disrup-
jump 33% this year
The World Health Organization (WHO) tion due to the sudden onset of Covid-
The sudden jump in the volume of oil, 19 in terms of key parameters like gross
allowed "widespread use" of the world's
gas and coal being transported across first vaccine against malaria, a common premium, policies issued, underwriting
the seas is pushing up cargo insurance
mosquito-borne disease that claims losses/profit, combined ratio, gross
premiums for India's general insurance more than four lakh lives every year. claims, number of employees, FDI and
companies.
Developed by GlaxoSmithKline (GSK), investment in infrastructure and social
This is significant as the cargo insurance the vaccine, known as RTS,S/AS01, has sectors since March 2020, it witnessed
market had declined by close to 8 per already been administered to nearly 8 significant improvement in FY21.

6 The Insurance Times, November 2021