New India Assurance aims to complete global buys by 2011-12

In a sign that state-owned insurance companies are now gearing up to enhance their presence overseas through the inorganic route, The New India Assurance Co plans to acquire general insurance companies in West Indies and Africa.

The company already has a subsidiary in Trinidad and Tobago in the Caribbean region and will route the acquisition through it.

For its growth plans in Africa, Nigeria will be the gateway to expand its operations.

“The acquisitions in Africa will be done through our subsidiary in Nigeria,” Chairman and Managing Director M Ramadoss said.

Though he maintained that the company has not yet finalised any concrete targets, it hopes to complete the acquisitions by March, 2012.

 

“We have not yet started talking to anyone. We will try to complete the acquisitions by 2010-11. Otherwise, it will spill over to 2011-12,” he added.

Currently, The New India Assurance Co has over 19 branches globally. The company’s footprint spans from Netherlands Antilles to Fiji and New Zealand.

It also plans to strengthen its presence in West Asia by opening a branch in Qatar.

“A branch in Qatar will be opened very shortly,” he said without giving an exact timeframe. The company already has branches in Kuwait, Bahrain, Oman, United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia.

It has around 1,100 offices in India. Ramadoss said the company is targeting a gross premium growth of 15 per cent year-on-year in 2010-11.

“In April-June itself, our gross premium growth has been around 20 per cent. We will be able to maintain over 15 per cent growth in this year,” he said.

In 2009-10, The New India Assurance Co had collected a total of Rs 7,200 crore as gross premium from both domestic and overseas operations. Out of this, Rs 6,000 crore came from its domestic business.

The company had collected Rs 6,456 crore as gross premium in 2008-09.

Nearly 60-65 per cent of its gross premiums come from motor and health insurance segments.

Cashless facility
On the ongoing row over cashless mediclaim facility between some hospital chains and four public sector general insurance companies, Ramadoss said both the parties are in talks to arrive at package rates.

“The recent initiative of creating a preferred provider network where in we encourage the hospitals to come out with package rates for major illnesses is a step to resolve the issues. We will agree for cashless facility for all those hospitals that are ready for package rates,” he said.

New India Assurance, United India Insurance, National Insurance and Oriental Insurance had suspended about 150 hospitals from their list of preferred provider network healthcare companies providing cashless hospitalisation services to policy holders under the mediclaim scheme.

Last Friday, both private hospitals and the four general insurance companies had agreed to restore the cashless treatment facility within 10 days.