General Insurance market stabilising with strength

Shrirang V Samant"Four years after opening up the non life-sector for private competition, the market, I think, is now stabilising with strength areas of both the public and the private players getting demarcated," says Shrirang V Samant, CEO, HDFC Chubb General Insurance Company Limited.

According to him the market is gearing up for product offerings and customer service while the motor insurance segment registered the highest growth rate for the industry as a whole as well as for HDFC Chubb.

For the year ended March 31, 2004, HDFC Chubb has earned a gross premium of Rs112.95 crore and after taking into account the reinsurance cession (Rs28.49 crore) and acceptance (Rs4.21 crore) the net premium of Rs88.67 crore earned by the company.

"We earned Rs 107.99 crore from motor insurance while the balance was contributed by fire insurance (Rs36 lakh), marine (Rs20,000) and Miscellaneous (Rs4.58 crore)," Samant gives the breakup.

The company was the industry's biggest growth achiever last year — logging over 1,000 per cent growth. However, last fiscal was the first full year of operations and the base on which the growth was achieved is very low.