Senior posts vacant in general insurance biz

These include post of chairman and managing director at National Insurance Company

Several senior positions in the general insurance industry, especially in the state-owned insurers, have been lying vacant for the past several months. These include the posts of chairman and managing director (CMD) at National Insurance Company,  General Insurance Corporation of India, apart from member (non-life) and Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority of India (Irdai).

At National Insurance, the post has been lying vacant since March 1, 2014, and in the past executives from other state-owned insurers have been given additional charge of this post. Similarly, GIC Reinsurance has K Sanath Kumar as the acting CMD. Sources said while interviews for both these posts were held on July 15, the final decisions are still awaited.

Similarly, the regulatory body is also awaiting the appointment of member (non-life) after M Ramaprasad retired from this post in May 2015. While interviews were held for this post on May 8, the decision is yet to be given. Industry sources said P J Joseph, CMD of Agriculture Insurance company, was selected for this post, but formal orders have not been given.

In 2015, Irdai saw several top-level exits in the first few months. While the positions of whole-time members of non-life, finance and investment became vacant between March and July, the post of member-life had been lying vacant since February 2014. However, Nilesh Sathe was appointed as member-life in mid-2015 as also V R Iyer as member-finance & investment.

After almost a four-year wait, Pournima Gupte took charge as member-actuary at Irdai in January 2015. The position of member- actuary at Irdai had been lying vacant after R Kannan retired in early 2011. 

According to section 4 of the Irda Act, 1999, the regulatory body is composed of a 10-member team consisting of a chairman, five whole-time members and four part-time members. All of them are appointed by the government of India.  Senior appointments under the central government require approval from the Appointments Committee of the Cabinet (ACC).

Similarly, in state-owned insurance companies, the ACC takes a final call on appointments. Each public general insurance company also appoints two general managers as wholetime director. Some of these posts are also lying vacant.

Next year too, there will be some vacancies in public general insurers as the chairman and managing director of Oriental Insurance and United India Insurance would be retiring in June 2016.