January 4, 2014
Reliance General and Royal Sundaram were the only two private sector general insurance companies that witnessed decline in market share during 2012-13, says regulator IRDA. At a time when the market share of 17 private non-life insurance companies rose from 42.2 percent to 44.39 percent, Reliance General’s business slipped from 3.24 percent to 3.19 percent in 2012-13. Similarly, market share of Royal Sundaram Alliance Insurance witnessed a decline from 2.8 percent in 2011-12 to 2.48 percent in the last financial year, said the annual report of Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority. However, both Reliance and Royal Sundaram reported jump in total premium realisation to Rs 2,010.01 crore and Rs 1,560 crore, respectively. ICICI Lombard General Insurance, leading private insurer, maintained its market share at 9.74 percent in the last fiscal.
Another major insurer Bajaj Allianz General Insurance showed improvement in operations by capturing 6.35 percent of total business as against 6.22 percent in 2011-12. Other private players including IFFCO Tokio, Tata AIG, HDFC Ergo, Cholamandalam MS and Bharti AXA, too witnessed increase their market shares. The increase in private sector business of non-life insurance comes at the cost of four state-owned companies as their market share declined from 57.8 percent to 55.61 percent in 2012-13 year-on-year despite increase in premium collection. Among the public sector companies, share of National Insurance dipped to 14.56 percent (from 14.73 percent), New India to 15.94 percent (16.16 percent), Oriental Insurance to 10.41 percent (11.44 percent) and United India to 14.71 percent (15.47 percent).