Nic Ups Marketshare To 21%

National Insurance Company (NIC) has improved its marketshare in the general insurance business to 21 per cent in 1997-98 as against 20.4 per cent in 1996-97.

The general insurance market is monopolised by the four subsidiary companies of General Insurance Corporation (GIC). Of these four, National Insurance is considered to be the smallest one in terms of premium income and business range.

New India Assurance Company, which is the largest in the GIC family, suffered a setback in marketshare which went down from 32.4 per cent in 1996-97 to 31.8 per cent in 1997-98.

In comparison, United India Insurance Company's marketshare slipped only slightly from 25.2 per cent to 25 per cent. Oriental Insurance Company, however, gained as its marketshare improved from 22 per cent to 22.2 per cent.

In the GIC family, National Insurance is the flagship company in the eastern region, Oriental Insurance in the northern region, New India Assurance in the western zone and United India in the southern zone.

Though accounts of the GIC subsidiaries are not yet complete, broad indications are that the premium income of NIC has touched Rs 1621.15 crore in 1997-98 as against Rs 1440 crore in 1996-97.

The company has set a target of generating a premium income of Rs 2069 crore by the end of 1998-99 thereby clocking a growth of 25 per cent.

While New India Assurance and United India were set to exceed the Rs 2,000 crore mark in premium incomes in 1997-98, it was expected to be around Rs 1800 crore for Oriental Insurance.

For all the companies put together, growths under different heads were rather disappointing. Fire insurance growth dropped from 15.9 per cent in 1996-97 to 13 per cent in 1997-98.

In the case of motor insurance, the growth fell dramatically from 22.6 per cent in 1996-97 to 12.2 per cent in 1997-98.

Similarly, marine cargo insurance saw a drop in growth from 9.5 per cent to 1.3 per cent. In marine hull, however, the industry reversed the trend from (-)5.55 growth in 1996-97 to 9.4 per cent in 1997-98.

On the other hand, under the head of miscellaneous insurance, the growth fell from 23 per cent to 17.9 per cent.