SBI General Insurance profit up 7% at Rs 105 cr in FY15

SBI General Insurance, non-life subsidiary of State Bank of India, today reported a 7 per cent rise in net profit at Rs 105 crore for fiscal ended March 2015 despite settling claims of over Rs 300 crore.
The general insurance firm had a profit of Rs 98 crore in the previous fiscal.
"My company had settled claims amounting to Rs 304 crore in FY15 against Rs 138 crore in FY14. Also, the company settled claims amounting to Rs 17 crore in case of Hudhud cyclone," managing director and chief executive Bhaskar J Sarma told PTI.
The increase in loss was due to a Supreme Court judgement which has asked the insurers to make more provisions in the case of accidental deaths, he said.

The company's underwriting losses went up by 48 percent during the fiscal under review to Rs 297 crore from Rs 200 crore in FY14.
However, he said, the company has done well on other parameters.

Gross written premium rose by 33 percent to Rs 1,606 crore from Rs 1,210 crore FY14, which was the highest in the industry.
"We have grown at a rate of 33 per cent compared to the industry growth of 9.3 per cent," he said.
"We are looking at achieving break-even by the end of the current fiscal and making underwriting profit by March, 2019," he said.

"We want to bring down our business coming from bancassurance channel from current 60 per cent to 50 per cent and increase the business coming from agencies and brokers from current 40 per cent to 50 per cent by the fiscal end," he added.
During FY15, the company generated 70 per cent of business from the retail segment. The SME segment contributed nearly 15 per cent, while corporate segment accounted for 15 per cent.
"Corporate segment registered a growth of 47 percent and retail segment registered a growth of 42 percent during the FY15. Our strength in retail is strongly driven by distribution reach of our bancassurance partners," he said.

Speaking on SBI General's focus for the new financial year, Sarma said "we will continue to create simple, innovative products that are easy to understand and develop our distribution channels. We are focused on promoting general insurance covers to smaller towns and rural areas.