Bharti AXA launches general insurance operations

Bharti AXA General Insurance Company, a joint venture between Bharti Group and the AXA Group of Europe, is expected to see its capital base increase by Rs 645 crore over the next five years, as against an initial capital of Rs 130 crore.

The company launched its operations today.

The company, which will be headquartered in Bangalore, will sell property, project and engineering, cargo, motor, health, personal accident and travel insurance products. Chief Executive Officer Milind Chalisgaonkar said the general insurer will use the agency force of Bharti Axa Life Insurance to sell its retail products such as health and motor.

Bharti Axa Life, which begun operations in 2006, has 20,000 insurance agents. Bharti holds a 74 per cent stake in the joint ventures, with the remaining held by AXA.

The two have also partnered for an asset management company. Bharti has a customer base of 72 million and the general insurance company plans to leverage this pool of consumers.

“Currently, we have seven offices across the country and we plan to increase it to 29 by the year-end,” Bharti Axa General Insurance Chief Financial Officer George Kurien said.

Axa net profit falls to ¤2.16 bn

Paris: AXA, Europe’s second-biggest insurer, reported a 32 per cent fall in the first half net profit on Thursday although the earnings came in above the average market forecast.

Net profit fell to ¤2.162 billion ($3.35 billion), partly because of writedowns on fixed income assets due to the global credit crunch.