Oriental Insurance eyes 10% growth in premium income

The public-sector general insurer Oriental Insurance Company has set a target to close the current fiscal with a premium income of Rs 4,400 crore, an increase of eight per cent compared to last year. To boost the sales the insurer is planning to give incentives to its employees and planning to start selling policies online.

Meanwhile the general insurer has appointed a consulting firm to study whether it should continue with third party for its mediclaim policies or not.

Company’s Managing Director M Ramadoss said that last year the company collected a premium of Rs 4,070 crore and set a target of Rs 4,400 crore for the current fiscal. During the first quarter the company has reported a 10 per cent growth in the premium income which stood at Rs 1,300 crore. Fire and engineering were the growth drivers and going forward the company will focus on retail business in rural areas.

To boost the sales Oriental to introduce an incentive scheme this fiscal for the high performing employees, he told reporters on the sidelines of an insurance seminar here.

“We will measure the performance of each branch on the metrics like policy issuance, claims settlement, business growth.” If a branch meets the requisite grade, all its employees in the branch will get incentives.”

The company would share three per cent of company’s net profit with employees as incentives this year, he added.

On August 15, the company is going to launch a core insurance solution through which customers can buy policies like overseas travel cover, health, personal accident, motor and house holders policies instantly.

Commenting on the TPAs, Ramadoss said the company has engaged KPMG to study whether the company should continue TPA or should the company handle inhouse.

To speed up the claim settlement process the company had set up 15 hubs, which according to Ramadoss has brought down the number of days, for settling the claims, to 25-30 compared to 78 days earlier.