General insurance industry's premium income up 19% in Jan

The four PSU entities saw their gross premium collection rise by 25% y-o-y to Rs 4,106 cr

The premium income of Indian general insurance industry, dominated by public sector entities, grew 19 per cent in January to Rs 7,380.72 crore.

The four PSU entities - National Insurance, New India Assurance, Oriental Insurance and United India Insurance - saw their gross premium collection rise by 24.59 per cent year-on- year to Rs 4,106.23 crore in January, according to IRDA data.

During the month, these four entities accounted for about 56 per cent of the total premium collected by the 27-player general insurance industry.

Amongst the private sector players, Apollo Munich saw its premium rise by 52.98 per cent to Rs 166.77 crore in January. Premium income of ICICI Lombard increased by a marginal 6.6 per cent to Rs 703.22 crore; Reliance General up 14.1 per cent at Rs 184.97 crore.

HDFC ERGO General's premium during the month increased by 9.5 per cent to Rs 231.21 crore. Tata-AIG saw 5.7 per cent rise to Rs 203.46 crore and SBI General's premium income saw a rise of 38.85 per cent to Rs 111.72 crore.

The gross premium collection by 23 private players in January were up by 12.62 per cent to Rs 3,274.48 crore.

The gross premium of 4 state-run entities and 23 private players in the non-life insurance market during April-January period of 2013-14 rose by 13.66 per cent to Rs 63,766.76 crore, according to data available with the Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority (Irda).

For April-January period, the premium collected by public general insurance companies grew by 11.77 per cent from a year earlier to Rs 35,674.79 crore, IRDA data showed.

Private players' cumulative premium during the first 10 months of the ongoing fiscal increased 16.17 per cent to Rs 28,091.97 crore.