By IANS,
Chennai: Government owned non-life insurer United India Insurance Company is likely to close last fiscal with a premium income of Rs.5,100 crore up from Rs.4,277 crore earned in 2008-09.
“We have crossed the Rs.5,000 crore premium mark last fiscal. For the first time in our history we have crossed this magic figure,” a United India official told IANS Thursday on the condition of anonymity.
The city-based United India is the second non-life insurer in the country to cross this mark after New India Assurance Company Ltd.
The official said all the business lines contributed to the growth.
“The health insurance business grew by 35 percent followed by marine 30 percent, miscellaneous (burglary, home and others) 20 percent, motor 16 percent and fire 15 percent,” the official said.
Since the start of last fiscal, United India has been on the growth path which the officials attribute to the implementation of business process reengineering (BPR) project called Unisurge.
“Nearly Rs.560 crore out of around Rs.800 crore new business can be attributed to the implementation of BPR,” said the official.
United India had hired Boston Consulting Group (BCG) to suggest measures for revamping its operations.
Some of the recommendations were opening of specialised corporate branches, thrust on retail business, focusing on automobile dealers and one man offices and activating the agency force.
The insurer till date has opened seven large branches to serve corporate accounts and insurance brokers.
These large branches will have direct access to United India’s head office here skipping two layers to speedy action.
According to the official, the seven large corporate branches fetched the company a fresh premium of around Rs.150 crore last year.
He said the motor dealers and bancassurance channels brought a total of Rs.160 crore premium while the individual agency force brought in Rs.250 crore.
Disagreeing that the company is playing a price game to gain market share, he said: “We will not be able to achieve underwriting break-even (premium minus claims being neutral) in three years time if we are into a price war,” he remarked.
United India is planning to double the number of claims hub to 30 this fiscal which is expected to reduce the time taken for settling claims.