New India Assurance posts Rs 518 cr Q3 net

India's largest general insurance company New India Assurance today posted a net profit of Rs 518 crore for the third quarter ended 31 December, 2012. In the same period in 2011, the public general insurer has posted a net loss of Rs 178 crore owing to global catastrophic events like the Thailand Floods.

"We have seen a positive growth since there have been no major natural catastrophic events in the recent past," said G Srinivasan, CMD of New India Assurance. The total gross direct premium income of the company for the nine months ended 31 December 2012 stood at Rs 8512 crore, seeing a growth of 18.18% over previous year. India contributed Rs 7216 crore to this kitty and Rs 1305 crore premium income was contributed from locations outside India.

Srinivasan said that New India Assurance has set a target of Rs 12,000 crore as premium income for the current fiscal, with about Rs 2000 crore from international operations and the rest from India. He added that the company was also looking to expand in areas like micro insurance. "We have set up 160 micro-offices in the last three months and would add another 300 offices by the end of this fiscal," he said. The company already has 500 micro offices and recently launched a micro insurance product 'Jan Suraksha Laghu Bima Yojana'.

New India Assurance also saw a reduction in its underwriting losses which stood at Rs 1470 crore for nine months ended 31 December 2012, compared to Rs 1786 crore in same period in 2011. The combined ratio (sum of claims ratio and expense ratio) of the company for nine months ended December 2012 stood at 121% as compared to 129% in 2011.  Incurred claims stood at 88.81% at the end of December 2012, as compared to 93.29% at the end of December 2011.

The investment income of the company stood at Rs 2055 crore for the nine months ended December 2012 compared to Rs 1709.14 crore in the same period previous year. The net worth of New India Assurance stood at Rs 7601 crore for period ended 31 December 2012 compared to Rs 6740 crore in the same period in 2011.

Srinivasan also said that New India Assurance, alongwith the other three public general insurers is looking to get an in-principle approval from Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority (Irda) to set up an in-house third party administrator (TPA). Each insurer would approximately spend Rs 50 crore and a total of Rs 200 crore has been budgeted for this purpose for the next three years. General Insurance Corporation of India (GIC) would also be a part of this venture. Srinivasan further added that they were also in talks with Life Insurance Corporation of India (LIC), for the latter being a part of this TPA.