Royal Sundaram & #39;S H1 Premiums Off The Mark

Royal Sundaram's premium revenues for the first half of 2001-02 are slightly lower than expected.

However, the company expects to achieve it's Rs 120 crore target for the entire fiscal. Royal Sundaram, a 26:74 venture between Royal & SunAlliance and Sundaram Finance was one of the first non-life insurers to get a licence to operate in India.

"The premium revenues are slightly lower than expected, but for the rest, we are on track and upbeat about the market," says Micky Brigg, managing director. "All our other projections, including loss ratios are in line with what was expected," he adds. The 'lower-than-expected' revenues are attributed to the delays in launching some products and to the delay in clearances for corporate agencies.

 

Royal & SunAlliance have in fact recently brought in more capital into the company. The foreign partner has put in an additional Rs 30 crore, taking it's contribution from the original Rs 100 crore to Rs 130 crore now, Brigg said, adding that the money was put in mainly for fund development.

The company is also trying up with a number of leading hospitals and hospital chains to market it's health products.

"We have been concentrating on putting infrastructure in place and have filed a number of products. With distribution agreements signed with four multinational banks, our distribution networks are reasonably well set up. Customer feedback forms indicate that our service rating is excellent," says Brigg. The company has agreements with American Express, ABN Amro, Standard Chartered and Citibank to market it's products.

Half of the company's business comes from personal lines and the other half from commercial lines. "Our personal services are fairly well received as we can customise the products to the needs of our customers," he adds.

"We are branding our products using corporate agency tie ups. Within the next 2 to 5 weeks, our products should be reaching 2 million customers," Brigg adds. The insurance company already has around 100 products in the market and more awaiting approval in the pipeline.

For the rural market, the company is talking to local Indian banks to utilise them as distribution channels. As of now, it has sold some personal accident covers in the rural area, he says.

The company, which started with offices in Chennai, Mumbai and Delhi, now also has offices in Pune, Hyderabad, Bangalore, Coimbatore and Kolkatta. The Kolkatta office will be upgraded to a regional office in time, Brigg says.

Among the products which the plans to offer are private motor, personal accident, home and household, health and travel insurance.